the strangest and most wonderful incident happened to me last week. as pope john paul II lay dying & the the rest of the world went on pope deathwatch 2005, i started receiving emails from my brother louie.
these emails were not the usual ilk of "come see me read at such & such place or wherever," (he's a published author). no, they contained phrases like "Woo!Woo!Woo!" & "Oh Basil, let's play cowboy one more time before we go see Harold & Maude." when we were younger, my brother louie made up a lot of characters, very creative too, like George Genie who made people walk, talk & act like Casper the friendly ghost & then there were Harold & Maude & Basil, cleverly disguised as pope john paul I & pope john paul II, respectively.
in this creative space, we acted out situations that the each pope would do, beneath cozies (quilts), only well, the popes were kinky, in that, they were always into s & m, carried lots of whips & chains, wrote a best-selling book called "Whips & Chains, Love The Pains" & performed songs like: Whips & Chains, Love The Pains (book & song had similar lyrics & words), John Paul (parody of Frank Mills, from the musical Hair) & even formed a group called the Beat-als (beatles)!
here is a sample of the rough draft parody...
john paul
i met a pope named john paul
right here in front of the vatican
but unfortunately, i lost his address
i love him, but it embarrasses me
to walk down the street with him
he lives in rome somewhere
and wears this white papal helmet
he has whips & chains on his leather jacket
and on the back are written the names of harold & maude
and the beat-als...
i called louie for a different reason altogether the morning before the pope passed away & when he phoned back, the first words out of his mouth were: "woo-woo-woo," in a distressed manner. i laughed so hard & believe me when i tell you this, i mean it most sincerely. for six minutes & forty-three seconds, that was the best bonding i had with louie in years!
we laughed about all the things that Basil & Harold & Maude did, over the years. his wife had wondered who he was talking to, because he too was laughing so hard. then he said something that struck me kind of funny. he said, "i was a strange kid back then, wasn't i?" i disagreed & said no. although the pope is dead & buried & the vendors try to hawk pope memorabilia, i can hardly wait for the cardinals to select a new pope! Woo! Woo! Woo!
Friday, April 8
Thursday, April 7
Ding! Dong! Mouse Number 17 Is Dead! Long Live Mouse Number 17!
Mouse Number 17
I found Mouse Number 17
The one that chewed through my gabardine
Only weeks before the other ones
Rode upon my Mexican jumping beans
The week in February when it all began
I saw a little brown mouse shaving in a frying pan
Then alas it disappeared to tell the rest
The coast was clear, for a family of 17
The ringleader did appear
Its little face so full of cheer
As it herded the family into my place
A deluxe Waldorf rodent space
Fresh food, medicinal teas
Oh how clever it could be,
What brains it showed! Mouse Number 17
The plan was executed well
A mouse in every corner so I could tell
This would be no ordinary rodent terror cell
That would make my life a living hell
The sleepless nights I endured
Mouse pellets scattered like a breadcrumb trail
Shreds of paper mixed in along the way
The twitching of that little tail
So, I laid down mousetraps everywhere
Murdered eight in a single snare
That first weekend I had won
But the battle had just begun
So said the mastermind
Mouse Number 17
Soon, one by one, the family died
From cheese, peanut butter & Coca-Cola ® laced with cyanide
Eight more mice had taken the bait, but I knew only one remained
The one that hid inside the bathtub drain
The smartest of the bunch
The landlord of my terrain
The one that had caused so much pain
Just to frustrate me
It was a warm sunny April afternoon
When I came home to escape a work-day full of gloom
And there it lay, upon the kitchen floor
I stared at it to make sure it was dead
Not one blink did those beady pink eyes shed
The De-Con ® did its trick, as I swept it up with my broomstick
And sang an elegy as I threw it away, Mouse Number 17
I found Mouse Number 17
The one that chewed through my gabardine
Only weeks before the other ones
Rode upon my Mexican jumping beans
The week in February when it all began
I saw a little brown mouse shaving in a frying pan
Then alas it disappeared to tell the rest
The coast was clear, for a family of 17
The ringleader did appear
Its little face so full of cheer
As it herded the family into my place
A deluxe Waldorf rodent space
Fresh food, medicinal teas
Oh how clever it could be,
What brains it showed! Mouse Number 17
The plan was executed well
A mouse in every corner so I could tell
This would be no ordinary rodent terror cell
That would make my life a living hell
The sleepless nights I endured
Mouse pellets scattered like a breadcrumb trail
Shreds of paper mixed in along the way
The twitching of that little tail
So, I laid down mousetraps everywhere
Murdered eight in a single snare
That first weekend I had won
But the battle had just begun
So said the mastermind
Mouse Number 17
Soon, one by one, the family died
From cheese, peanut butter & Coca-Cola ® laced with cyanide
Eight more mice had taken the bait, but I knew only one remained
The one that hid inside the bathtub drain
The smartest of the bunch
The landlord of my terrain
The one that had caused so much pain
Just to frustrate me
It was a warm sunny April afternoon
When I came home to escape a work-day full of gloom
And there it lay, upon the kitchen floor
I stared at it to make sure it was dead
Not one blink did those beady pink eyes shed
The De-Con ® did its trick, as I swept it up with my broomstick
And sang an elegy as I threw it away, Mouse Number 17
Wednesday, April 6
Dropping The Information Ball
Like most folks on the face of the planet, i take mediciation for a newly diagnosed ailment, that in a future blog, i'll tell you all about. in any event, nothing to worry about dear readers...earlier this week, on monday afternoon, to be exact, i went to my local pharmacy to pick up the refill i had for my perscription, when the pharmacist had a quizzical look on his face. i knew something was immediately wrong when he told me, that he was unable to fill it, due to the minor fact that the medication i use, was recalled!
i was floored, not expecting to hear that & provided that i only had two days left of the medication. so i asked him what my options were. he smirked & said that he didn't think my medication would come back onto the market in the next three days & suggested i call my doctor, which a good friend of mine also suggested. so, that's what i did on monday evening, i paged my doctor. within 15 minutes she rang me back & i explained to her the reality of the situation, to which she gave me a lecture about my call, telling me it was not life-threatening & i should have waited until the morning to call her office and so on and so forth!
i wasn't amused, in light of the fact, that i was still in the dark about the recalled medicine and at this point, my doctor & the pharmacy knew, apparently for a few weeks that it had been recalled and didn't bother to inform me. in any event, she called the pharmacy, who in turn called me back & told me that i had the new perscription waiting for me.
the following (Tuesday) night, i went into the pharmacy to pick up the perscription & asked the on-duty pharmacist why it had been recalled. turns out the latest & most recent lots hadn't had enough potentcy in the drug itself. i asked if that meant all this time i was taking it, if it was like taking a placebo, which the phramacist didn't really give me a straight answer. she suggested i call my health insurance company in the morning to ask them about it.
so, this morning (Wednesday), i called up my health insurance company & asked someone on the "pharmacy team," as they phrase it & was told, that yes, indeed, it was recalled & they were only informed a week ago.
now, i'm not the kind of man who sits & waits for things to happen. i go & make them happen, meaning, i do read the news & keep up on all sorts of events, but apparently i missed this one. i suspect a lot of other people missed this too. i seem to recall (no pun intended), that this particular drug & its manufacturer, has had previous setbacks, seeing it in the news overseas several months ago, involved in a lawsuit, no doubt. it always a plus for me taking a medication that has been sued for or against...
but my main beef remains. whose job was it to inform me that this drug was recalled? the pharmacy? my doctor? my health insurance company? well, i personally think that all three should have made some valiant effort to inform me, instead of leaving in the dark. they all dropped the ball this time & they can do as much finger-pointing at each other as they want, but the end result will probably be, that they don't really care & they will carry on as if nothing happened. such is the way of the world, particularly in these united states.
i was floored, not expecting to hear that & provided that i only had two days left of the medication. so i asked him what my options were. he smirked & said that he didn't think my medication would come back onto the market in the next three days & suggested i call my doctor, which a good friend of mine also suggested. so, that's what i did on monday evening, i paged my doctor. within 15 minutes she rang me back & i explained to her the reality of the situation, to which she gave me a lecture about my call, telling me it was not life-threatening & i should have waited until the morning to call her office and so on and so forth!
i wasn't amused, in light of the fact, that i was still in the dark about the recalled medicine and at this point, my doctor & the pharmacy knew, apparently for a few weeks that it had been recalled and didn't bother to inform me. in any event, she called the pharmacy, who in turn called me back & told me that i had the new perscription waiting for me.
the following (Tuesday) night, i went into the pharmacy to pick up the perscription & asked the on-duty pharmacist why it had been recalled. turns out the latest & most recent lots hadn't had enough potentcy in the drug itself. i asked if that meant all this time i was taking it, if it was like taking a placebo, which the phramacist didn't really give me a straight answer. she suggested i call my health insurance company in the morning to ask them about it.
so, this morning (Wednesday), i called up my health insurance company & asked someone on the "pharmacy team," as they phrase it & was told, that yes, indeed, it was recalled & they were only informed a week ago.
now, i'm not the kind of man who sits & waits for things to happen. i go & make them happen, meaning, i do read the news & keep up on all sorts of events, but apparently i missed this one. i suspect a lot of other people missed this too. i seem to recall (no pun intended), that this particular drug & its manufacturer, has had previous setbacks, seeing it in the news overseas several months ago, involved in a lawsuit, no doubt. it always a plus for me taking a medication that has been sued for or against...
but my main beef remains. whose job was it to inform me that this drug was recalled? the pharmacy? my doctor? my health insurance company? well, i personally think that all three should have made some valiant effort to inform me, instead of leaving in the dark. they all dropped the ball this time & they can do as much finger-pointing at each other as they want, but the end result will probably be, that they don't really care & they will carry on as if nothing happened. such is the way of the world, particularly in these united states.
Tuesday, April 5
Self-Recorded Documentist
On the way home from work tonight, i popped in one of the many cassette tapes i have scattered on my saturn's (car) floor. the lucky pick tonight was a barrington arts festival dress rehearsal recording i made from saturday, october 11, 2003, in barrington illinois. it became a dress rehearsal, due to the mere fact that for someone unknown reason or another, the plumbing wasn't working thast night & they decided not to present a show. still, about 20 people showed up & i performed by heart out, as if it were.
i've been recording myself since the early 1980s, ever since i heard a radio interview conducted by the bbc's andy peebles toward the end of 1980, with the late john lennon & his wife yoko ono, as lennon remarked how they had documented themselves since the time they got together in the late 1960s. i was intrigued by that thought & decided to take heed to their advice & started to record myself as well. and somewhere, there is a reel-to-reel recording of me when i was just 6 months old, recorded by my parents, so the recording bug was imprinted on me early on.
in the beginning, i used to record myself, mostly to hear how i would sound on tape, my delivery style & my ennuciation skills. prior to this self-documentation declaration, i had recorded myself a few times earlier, at age 10 or 11, when i wanted to sound like a sports radio broadcaster announcing trades between baseball teams, which had been a career dream of mine, to be a radio broadcaster. sadly that tape doesn't exist anymore, as it went the way of the great tape eating machine frenzy. i also have a few high school interview tapes, of when i wrote for my high school newspaper in my senior year.
so, the tape recordings began. as you might well, imagine, i recorded everything i did in the 1980s, including all of the interviews i conducted when i began my career in journalism between 1980-1995. i recorded almost all of my performances, rehearsals i had with bands when i played with them, the two i formed, JTK (Joey The Tush Kangaroo) & Tribal Screen Hens. even as i recorded all of my poetry readings, hauling my tape recorder everywhere i went, i was always pointed out by poetry slam originator marc smith as, "it's charles bernstein & his tape recorder..." could have trademarked that one, i suppose, oh well. but onward i recorded. in the late 1990s, one of my roommates asked me why i recorded everything & why was it so necessary? i explained to him, that i wanted to catch everything, including the mistakes that i could learn from.
from time to time, i recorded others, street sounds, girlfriends, telephone messages & events. that came in handy later, as i made hard to find recordings of my friends who knew i had recorded them on tape. the roommate who asked me why so many years ago, was more than eager to have a cassette full of recordings that weren't available elsewhere. i had become a documentist.
in the mid-1990s, when i lived in both attica & west lafayette, indiana, i became the unofficial tape recording documentist for a monthly talent program, while recording bands on my four-track machine. i must have recorded over 30 bands, besides myself, all the while, working on my delivery style.
in late 1994, in an attempt to get the programmers of the monthly talent program to make good on their word of releasing a compilation of all of the bands i recorded, i put up flyers around town, offering the tapes for sale along with other performances i had, only to receive a cease & desist letter from the program coordinators, telling me i couldn't release those tapes, only my own recordings of me.
although they explained to me that other bands complained, it was kind of funny, in light of the fact that i had never heard or received a complaint, only requests by various bands to get copies of their performances. the coordinators didn't seem to mind that i had recorded the bands, but i suspect when it came down to making a buck off of the enterprise, they cried foul, ahhhh, but money always talks, i guess.
along with those tapes, i have over 150 hours of songs, rehearsal songs, songs that never made it past rehearsal, false starts & demos of songs that ended up in completely different forms. a lot of these songs came from my time spent with teachers in private lessons, recitals & songs i had written from the early 1980s onward, including pop, jazz, comedy, novelty & throat-singing. all of these tapes are boxed and labeled and yes, i remember each and every performance i ever gave. hard to believe, but true. out of all the performances and readings i have recorded, only six didn't turn out, but from such an massive archive collection i have, these tapes have come in handy, when trying to piece together past outings & rememberances.
i hope one day to donate my tapes and other recordings to a public library, a college or university, somewhere that someone like you reading this, can study what it was, that i am all about, both in poetry & song. like the world, i am ever-changing, interlocking with new sound & creativeness. i pity the day the recording industry abolishes tape entirely for a cheaper way to imprint a sound.
i've been recording myself since the early 1980s, ever since i heard a radio interview conducted by the bbc's andy peebles toward the end of 1980, with the late john lennon & his wife yoko ono, as lennon remarked how they had documented themselves since the time they got together in the late 1960s. i was intrigued by that thought & decided to take heed to their advice & started to record myself as well. and somewhere, there is a reel-to-reel recording of me when i was just 6 months old, recorded by my parents, so the recording bug was imprinted on me early on.
in the beginning, i used to record myself, mostly to hear how i would sound on tape, my delivery style & my ennuciation skills. prior to this self-documentation declaration, i had recorded myself a few times earlier, at age 10 or 11, when i wanted to sound like a sports radio broadcaster announcing trades between baseball teams, which had been a career dream of mine, to be a radio broadcaster. sadly that tape doesn't exist anymore, as it went the way of the great tape eating machine frenzy. i also have a few high school interview tapes, of when i wrote for my high school newspaper in my senior year.
so, the tape recordings began. as you might well, imagine, i recorded everything i did in the 1980s, including all of the interviews i conducted when i began my career in journalism between 1980-1995. i recorded almost all of my performances, rehearsals i had with bands when i played with them, the two i formed, JTK (Joey The Tush Kangaroo) & Tribal Screen Hens. even as i recorded all of my poetry readings, hauling my tape recorder everywhere i went, i was always pointed out by poetry slam originator marc smith as, "it's charles bernstein & his tape recorder..." could have trademarked that one, i suppose, oh well. but onward i recorded. in the late 1990s, one of my roommates asked me why i recorded everything & why was it so necessary? i explained to him, that i wanted to catch everything, including the mistakes that i could learn from.
from time to time, i recorded others, street sounds, girlfriends, telephone messages & events. that came in handy later, as i made hard to find recordings of my friends who knew i had recorded them on tape. the roommate who asked me why so many years ago, was more than eager to have a cassette full of recordings that weren't available elsewhere. i had become a documentist.
in the mid-1990s, when i lived in both attica & west lafayette, indiana, i became the unofficial tape recording documentist for a monthly talent program, while recording bands on my four-track machine. i must have recorded over 30 bands, besides myself, all the while, working on my delivery style.
in late 1994, in an attempt to get the programmers of the monthly talent program to make good on their word of releasing a compilation of all of the bands i recorded, i put up flyers around town, offering the tapes for sale along with other performances i had, only to receive a cease & desist letter from the program coordinators, telling me i couldn't release those tapes, only my own recordings of me.
although they explained to me that other bands complained, it was kind of funny, in light of the fact that i had never heard or received a complaint, only requests by various bands to get copies of their performances. the coordinators didn't seem to mind that i had recorded the bands, but i suspect when it came down to making a buck off of the enterprise, they cried foul, ahhhh, but money always talks, i guess.
along with those tapes, i have over 150 hours of songs, rehearsal songs, songs that never made it past rehearsal, false starts & demos of songs that ended up in completely different forms. a lot of these songs came from my time spent with teachers in private lessons, recitals & songs i had written from the early 1980s onward, including pop, jazz, comedy, novelty & throat-singing. all of these tapes are boxed and labeled and yes, i remember each and every performance i ever gave. hard to believe, but true. out of all the performances and readings i have recorded, only six didn't turn out, but from such an massive archive collection i have, these tapes have come in handy, when trying to piece together past outings & rememberances.
i hope one day to donate my tapes and other recordings to a public library, a college or university, somewhere that someone like you reading this, can study what it was, that i am all about, both in poetry & song. like the world, i am ever-changing, interlocking with new sound & creativeness. i pity the day the recording industry abolishes tape entirely for a cheaper way to imprint a sound.
Monday, April 4
Beef Jerky! Fun In The Bun
My job at work is a fairly cut and dried position, sort of like tasteless & flat beef jerky. For eight hours a day, i talk to people from different manufacturing facilities across the united states & attempt to gather information for my company's manufacturing directories. sounds simple, right? not on your life, pal! it's one of the more challenging positions i've held for over the past three and a half years. it appears boring, but it's by no means easy.
one of the many things i've learned while working here, is the many methods of madness i've invented in order to get past the barriers of "no thanks" or "not interested," but i won't publish them here, for fear some of my colleagues might read this & steal my ideas, god only knows that it is prevelant where i work, cheating & manipulation of data, but that's another story for another time.
a couple of things i've noticed while calling, well not a couple of things, a lot of things, actually. in the paperwork we use, one of the several questions we ask after i've explained to the potential caller my purpose for calling & then ask, "do you have a fax number?" people get all incensed and ask me what i'm doing. when i ask, "what year did the company start?" they get even angrier & ask me again what i am doing. i have to ask myself, are they really paying attention? nope! probably not, especially when i have to repeat myself umpteen times.
then there's the "free listing" factor. a lot of times people think we are selling them something, when it's actually the opposite. my downfall to this, well it's not a downfall at all, it's just that when i do it, i have a very smooth, deep voice & right away i am considered a telemarketer & the invisible barriers go up quickly. right about then, i listen to, on an average daily consumption about 50 or so people telling me how they 've been duped or suckered into buying something or signing up for services that they really don't need & i appear to be like all of those types of callers.
rudeness often follows along with the usual result of hang-ups & in some cases, swearing & threats against my life (in rare cases, it often depends on the state, although new york & new jersey immediately spring to mind).
so why do i continue in such a job? well, believe it or not, i actually like it, primarily because it fords me the opportunity to be creative to a certain degree. it gives me the ability to speak to people around the united states & also it's a great way to know what people are thinking, as sometimes i ask them, depending on the friendliness of the voice, a question regarding the economy or something about the city they live in or near. it's also a great inspiration to my writing & poetry. god only knows how many poems, songs & prose pieces i've written about the people i work for & my co-workers, both present & past.
in future blogs, unless requested or threatened or forced into silence, i will tell you tales of cheating & data manipulation, threats received & above all harassment tales from the former & the latter. see you 'round the computers, ooops wait, i forgot, they'll be tied up forever if old what's-his-name stays on longer than 20 minutes. or is it half an hour? or will it be one hour?
one of the many things i've learned while working here, is the many methods of madness i've invented in order to get past the barriers of "no thanks" or "not interested," but i won't publish them here, for fear some of my colleagues might read this & steal my ideas, god only knows that it is prevelant where i work, cheating & manipulation of data, but that's another story for another time.
a couple of things i've noticed while calling, well not a couple of things, a lot of things, actually. in the paperwork we use, one of the several questions we ask after i've explained to the potential caller my purpose for calling & then ask, "do you have a fax number?" people get all incensed and ask me what i'm doing. when i ask, "what year did the company start?" they get even angrier & ask me again what i am doing. i have to ask myself, are they really paying attention? nope! probably not, especially when i have to repeat myself umpteen times.
then there's the "free listing" factor. a lot of times people think we are selling them something, when it's actually the opposite. my downfall to this, well it's not a downfall at all, it's just that when i do it, i have a very smooth, deep voice & right away i am considered a telemarketer & the invisible barriers go up quickly. right about then, i listen to, on an average daily consumption about 50 or so people telling me how they 've been duped or suckered into buying something or signing up for services that they really don't need & i appear to be like all of those types of callers.
rudeness often follows along with the usual result of hang-ups & in some cases, swearing & threats against my life (in rare cases, it often depends on the state, although new york & new jersey immediately spring to mind).
so why do i continue in such a job? well, believe it or not, i actually like it, primarily because it fords me the opportunity to be creative to a certain degree. it gives me the ability to speak to people around the united states & also it's a great way to know what people are thinking, as sometimes i ask them, depending on the friendliness of the voice, a question regarding the economy or something about the city they live in or near. it's also a great inspiration to my writing & poetry. god only knows how many poems, songs & prose pieces i've written about the people i work for & my co-workers, both present & past.
in future blogs, unless requested or threatened or forced into silence, i will tell you tales of cheating & data manipulation, threats received & above all harassment tales from the former & the latter. see you 'round the computers, ooops wait, i forgot, they'll be tied up forever if old what's-his-name stays on longer than 20 minutes. or is it half an hour? or will it be one hour?
Sunday, April 3
Legacy? Or Revisionism?
There's a word that seems to have inched its way into our language within the last few years or so, that is being used incorrectly. that word which i speak of is "legacy." no doubt you've heard that word too, as it is used over and over and over again by media & press, sometimes a little too much, in describing what a dead celebrity's or person's legacy will be. the word legacy comes from Latin, meaning to bequeath: a gift of property by will or a gift of personal property. In an average English dictionary, it's defined as something handed down from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past. well, it seems a little odd that a person leaves anything behind other than the acts they committed during their lifetime & their lifeless human flesh. besides, they did all that they did during their lifetime. not a whole lot is going to be accomplished in death, other than decomposition of their flesh and bones. but legacy is a misused word & it seems to have been adopted and well-liked, enough so, that everybody uses the word, even if it is wrong. but wrong is what is right in the world today. it will continue onward to no end. kind of like those who continue to revise history, but that's another story altogether. or is it? what legacy will revisionist historians leave behind? not much i bet, except for lots of good bits left on the cutting room floor.
Saturday, April 2
Single And Reasonably Well-Adjusted Too!
about two months ago at the gym where i work out, while filling up my water bottle, i glanced up at the facility's "buddy board" (bulletin board) & saw this posting for a woman named Julie, looking for a buddy to work out with. she was looking for someone with intermediate workout experience, age 40-50 and someone that was reasonably well-adjusted & a high energy level. well, that sounded like me, but i didn't respond until two weeks later & received an email from Julie the next week with the following message: "let's meet and workout next Thursday, at 4:30. How about we meet by the treadmills? I am interested in kicking my social life up a notch by meeting single, reasonably well-adjusted, high energy men. Does this sound like you?Excellent!"
a date! i thought, okay great! wasn't sure what to expect from her & wrote her back once more as i didn't know what she looked like, so she wrote me back and told me what she would wear. so i waited. yes, i was anxious, nervous, excited, not knowing what to expect. well, thursday finally rolled around & i got there on time & waited & waited & waited, until 10 minutes after the fact she showed up and went immediately to the wall to start stretching! i walked up to her, and called her name, which seemed to startle her! funny, huh? so we started talking & she showed me a few stretching exercises too & was critical of my worn out shoes. she didn't apologize for being late, and i thought, alright, so be it. finally we got to the machines, set up the proper timings and off we went. she ran, i walked & ironically, i ended up doing most of the talking, telling her about my outside career of acting & throatsinging & my ufo sighting stories, even demonstrated a few tones for her too! yes all this on the treadmill in a public gym, imagine that!
she told she worked in a public school in the city, not much about herself or her family, although she mentioned her sister a number of times, which made me wonder if there was something more to her, then she was letting on. by the end of our run, i asked her what's next & she said, "well, see you around," which was a nice way of saying no, i guess. i often wondered in the weeks after that, what in the world was she really looking for, because it seemed to me that she herself seemed a little scared & the total opposite of what she was looking for.
my suspicions were confirmed & i probably should have listened to my inner conscious when i read her teaching philosophy on the website where she works..."The goal of education must be the fullest development of a student's gifts and capabilities. To meet a student where s/he is, challenge him/her and facilitate his/her growth as a human being -- that is successful teaching. For, ultimately, it is not what I do as an educator that will make a student a success or failure in school and in life; it is what the student does. It is this belief in my individual student's capabilities that informs all my teaching choices. With each choice I make, I ask myself: does this choice facilitate optimal learning for this student? Facilitator, model, creator of optimal learning environments... these are the roles I play as teacher." in my humble opinion, this doesn't tell me anything other than total confusion & chaos, in other words, she doesn't know what she wants & perhaps is placing her fears into a potential date, only to reject them. it's a old familar pattern that never seems to go away, kind of like blocking out an physical assault or rape, thinking it won't affect your future. how wrong that philosophy is!
but hey, julie & i were not meant to be & that's fine with me. last night, i saw her new posting up on the buddy board & i guess that means she's looking again, so if there are any of you single & available bachelor-types (male or female) out there reading this & are looking for a date, i know julie's looking, give her a buzz @ 773-485-4160 (Julie's number was listed in her posting) & be sure to tell that the mishegas master sent you!
a date! i thought, okay great! wasn't sure what to expect from her & wrote her back once more as i didn't know what she looked like, so she wrote me back and told me what she would wear. so i waited. yes, i was anxious, nervous, excited, not knowing what to expect. well, thursday finally rolled around & i got there on time & waited & waited & waited, until 10 minutes after the fact she showed up and went immediately to the wall to start stretching! i walked up to her, and called her name, which seemed to startle her! funny, huh? so we started talking & she showed me a few stretching exercises too & was critical of my worn out shoes. she didn't apologize for being late, and i thought, alright, so be it. finally we got to the machines, set up the proper timings and off we went. she ran, i walked & ironically, i ended up doing most of the talking, telling her about my outside career of acting & throatsinging & my ufo sighting stories, even demonstrated a few tones for her too! yes all this on the treadmill in a public gym, imagine that!
she told she worked in a public school in the city, not much about herself or her family, although she mentioned her sister a number of times, which made me wonder if there was something more to her, then she was letting on. by the end of our run, i asked her what's next & she said, "well, see you around," which was a nice way of saying no, i guess. i often wondered in the weeks after that, what in the world was she really looking for, because it seemed to me that she herself seemed a little scared & the total opposite of what she was looking for.
my suspicions were confirmed & i probably should have listened to my inner conscious when i read her teaching philosophy on the website where she works..."The goal of education must be the fullest development of a student's gifts and capabilities. To meet a student where s/he is, challenge him/her and facilitate his/her growth as a human being -- that is successful teaching. For, ultimately, it is not what I do as an educator that will make a student a success or failure in school and in life; it is what the student does. It is this belief in my individual student's capabilities that informs all my teaching choices. With each choice I make, I ask myself: does this choice facilitate optimal learning for this student? Facilitator, model, creator of optimal learning environments... these are the roles I play as teacher." in my humble opinion, this doesn't tell me anything other than total confusion & chaos, in other words, she doesn't know what she wants & perhaps is placing her fears into a potential date, only to reject them. it's a old familar pattern that never seems to go away, kind of like blocking out an physical assault or rape, thinking it won't affect your future. how wrong that philosophy is!
but hey, julie & i were not meant to be & that's fine with me. last night, i saw her new posting up on the buddy board & i guess that means she's looking again, so if there are any of you single & available bachelor-types (male or female) out there reading this & are looking for a date, i know julie's looking, give her a buzz @ 773-485-4160 (Julie's number was listed in her posting) & be sure to tell that the mishegas master sent you!
Friday, April 1
Hey! Who's That Guy With Morris?
now i realize that there is a lot & i mean a lot of hoopla for the declining health of the pope. death is no fun, unless of course you listen to ozzy osbourne or some other death metal band enough times to convince you otherwise, but does there have to be so much attention focused on his death? considering the possibility that the pope might already be dead, dead for days & the vatican news agency is just feeding the public, reports as instructed by the holy father himself. think that sounds mishegas (crazy)? well then, how do you explain his condition described as going from bad to worse to grave to worse to bad to worse to grave to bad, etc. death doesn't happen that way. it comes sudden & swiftly & poof! life becomes lifeless, anyway, i think you get the point. why can't the press just focus on the good that he championed during his reign as the holy father? well, wait, i just realized what i just wrote. strike that! i now know that it will never happen like that, perhaps, because the press covering this event are nothing more than blood-thirsty vultures waiting for him to die, so they can run that carefully prepared & edited footage and put on those oh-so-rehearsed somber faces as they read the words spat out in front of their eyes ever so slowly. cnn & fox news immediately come to mind. the fact that the pope is dying, isn't news. it's just the way it's reported as such is. i have to hand it to those few brianiac editors & publishers who saw fit to compare the pope's declining health with the now late brain-dead vegetable poster girl terri schavio. what brillancy! what genuises! what a way to sell papers & stocks! the press today is not the press that i worked in over 10 years ago. sure we wrote stories . sure we made our deadlines & wrote cute & daring headlines, but it is nothing like the cut-throat style newspapers & television broadcasters use today. it's all hollywood, made to look like a neat little package that would go well as a side dessert with your thanksgiving turkey. it is easy to blame the press or media as some call "them," but they aren't all that terrible. it's the few bad apples trying to sell papers in the face of death that make it look bad for the rest of them/us. perhaps that's why i've given up reading newspapers & stopped viewing television & instead only watch my radio for the latest happening in the universe.
Thursday, March 31
Art Is None Of My Business
Auditions can be tough, especially in light of the fact, that this audition i am speaking of is close to my heart, that being poetry/performance. A few weeks ago, i answered an ad from a local art gallery that was looking for artists, the kind that draw & sketch & those that perform, for a humor show that was being billed as a art that makes fun or mocks. fair enough, i thought, as i submitted 4 pieces for the show. a few days later, i received notice from the gallery, saying that one of my pieces would be too long & could i send them a sample on tape or cassette of the other pieces? instead, i volunteered to come down to the space to audition. so, that's what i did, subsituting the bounced piece for another, only to get a voicemail message later in the evening, that the only piece that they liked was a minute & half long & the gallery people couldn't see "disturbing" the patrons while they gazed upon the other artworks in the gallery. well, it all seems kind of silly to me, so here now, i'd like to present to you the following four pieces i audtioned to them. you be the judge & tell me, do you think these are laugh-out-loud funny or just plain unfunny? leave your comments in the comment box please...
(1) JesuSicle Brand Popsicles-A Novel, If Not Immaculate ConfectionaryConception>The Radio Commercial…>>On-Air Announcer:> “Imagine a hot sweltering day at the church--the kind of day you’d expect inHell -- the air-conditioning is not working, the fans you have switched onare blowing around a lot of hot air, as if the preacher’s wasn’t enough, andto make matters worse, children are screaming and running around thesanctuary, very oblivious to the group religious leader. She is unable toget them to chill out until she reaches into the portable freezer and giveseach of them a cool and refreshing JesuSicle (pronounced: Gee-sick-el) brandPopsicle! Yes friends, you heard me correctly, a JesuSicle!>For all you skeptics out there, here are the sweet details! Not only is itchockfull of eight vitamins and iron, but also it is guaranteed to give yourchildren all the Holy Spirit energy and holier-than- thou power they need ona day like today!Shaped like the holy savior dying on the cross, you will be glad to knowthat JesuSicles have been given high marks in quality, appearance and tasteby theologians, TV evangelists and ministries throughout the world. Look for it in your grocer’s freezer today! Comes in Crucifixion Cherry,Sepulchered Strawberry, Holy Smoke Gray, Proud Pilate Purple, Orange YouGlad You Accepted Jesus and our newest flavor, Roman Red Raspberry.”Available in same flavor six packs and Apostle 12 Pack, consisting of two ofeach flavor. Whether in church or not, your kiddies will love the challengeof licking down both arms and head before one or all of it falls off! As anadded incentive, each JesuSicle comes with a disposable red, white and bluepaint kit with brush that your children can paint the remaining cross-shapedsticks and place them along the highways where someone had previously died. And remember brothers and sisters, Hell are hot. A cool and refreshingJesuSicle is not.Amen!
(2)Oh, Deer!
Saw a deer in the glade,
In the clear of the shade
As the cars and the traffic raced on by
I crept closer across snow-covered ground,
Made wee little sound
As her head jerked suddenly toward me and said, “Hi!”
In the twilight I just spoke,
Told a few people jokes
At first she laughed and then she cried;
“Humans can be an annoying bunch,
Instead of letting us live,
They eat us for lunch”
“We just want our peace,
We want to be left alone
Wake up with the sun and return to the thicket when the dark sends us home”
“Imagine if you would
A bridge across the sea, a herd of white-tailed deer running so free
And then beyond the Gate of Seth,
Behold! A field of humans starving to death
And we’d all gather ‘round and watch them utter their last breaths
Later on, we’d sing and pray and feast
Upon the great white threat that can no longer slaughter us like beasts
After gutting their hides like they’ve done so much to ours
We’d mount their heads the same way they display us and our antlers”
As I looked at them with surprise,
Felt a cold shudder shoot down my spine
Such ghastly acts we commit without deny
As I waved so long to her and sighed,
I walked to my car and cried.
Still, for some odd reason, I hungered for a venison burger and an order of fries
(3) The Dells
(The Bells By Edgar Allen Poe, parody with rearrangements of stanzas by Charles Bernstein)
Hear the splash of water on the dellsUgly dellsWhat a sight of homeliness
Their ugliness foretells
How they winkle, winkle, winkle
In the pale Wisconsin night
All the men seem to sprinkle
With a urinary flight
Keeping pine, pine, pine
With a bunch of tissue line
From the outhouse to the bathhouse
That so wonderfully smells
In the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
From the spraying and the sprinkling on the dells
Hear the molding of the dells
Iron dells
What a world of water parks their monopoly compels
For all the boats that float
From the $50 park tickets in our coats
And the people sit and drone
On their suburban speakerphones
And the tolling, tolling, tolling
Feels a memento mori in the bankrolling
From the robbing and the shish-kabobbing
Of the melancholy dells
Oh, the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
Oh, the ozoning and the rezoning of the dells.
Hear the robots clanging around the dells
Brazen dells
What a tall tale of useful scrap metal now
Old Tommy Bartlett tells
Much too mummified to speak
Oh, his robots can only squeak
For all eardrums are blown
When those crazy robots screech like saxophones
Roaming faster, faster, faster
Like a blending mix-master
In a amorous attempt to keep the idea from becoming farklempt
With the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
With the flim-flammering and the she-banging of the dells
Hear the noisy traffic Wisconsin dells
Golden dells
What a world of tourism
Their financial status foretells
Through the circus parades in the night
How the cash registers ring out their profit margin delight
Through the dollars and the credit cards
And the cheese concoctions that taste like vomit a la’ lard
How it smells
How it sells
On the future
How it gels
From the stringing and the bringing of the tourists to the dells
To the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
Of the reaming and the scheming of the dells
(4)History Makes Strange Bedfellows AKA The True Ballad Of How Dr Jack Kevorkian Tried To Revive The Comatose Life Of Yasser Arafat & Failed Miserably
“No prison can hold me in time of need. Gotta go help my friend dying in a
Paris bed. Gotta go fix him good, so he don’t wind up dead,” Dr. Jack
Kevorkian to reporters in Paris, on why he escaped a Michigan state
penitentiary in early morning hours of November 10, 2004.
This here’s the story of how Dr. Jack Kevorkian tried to alter history, but
instead made it miserable for his late dear friend Yasser Arafat. It’s a
true story, I swear to Allah…
Late one night in prison cell two, Dr. Jack was kickin’ back with nothin’
better to do, when suddenly he received a telekinetic message from his old
friend Yasser, calling out, “Come to Paris right away! I need you!”
Well, Dr. Jack didn’t have time to pack. He slipped through the bars and
made his escape.
Meanwhile, back at the penitentiary, the floodlights went up, the dogs were
a-sniffin’ about as badly as watching old Scottie Pippin limping off a
basketball court. They wrote the report & then came that old familiar sound:
Calling all cars! Calling all cars! The greatest manhunt ever assembled &
manifested on prison grounds, because most people assumed what old Dr. Jack
was really up to…
He crawled & he swam. He walked & he ran. He thumbed & he crammed himself a ride to Detroit International. There was no stopping Dr. Jack, as he ran
down the airport gangway & toward the entrance of a Paris-bound plane.
“Take me to Yasser!” he screamed.
“Are you insane?” the pilots countered.
Dr. Jack produced a needle & a set of rubber tubes. Well, sir, those pilots didn’t
need any more convincing, so off they flew, over the clouds and past the oceans. Turned right at Greenland & flew by England, when at last they arrived in Paris at 1 a.m., only to be confronted by a crowd of French coppers, waiting to click him in cuffs & take him back to Detroit.
But that Jack! Was he clever or what! The sly euthanasia pioneer eluded the
cops, needling them one-by-one as he sailed passed, watching each man point,
click & fall holding their guns, for the very last time.
As 1 a.m., fell into 1:30, he caught a cab & told the driver to step on it fast. The cab drove on until it reached the infirmary, got out and saw the place was crawling with soldiers & coppers & mourners & press corps & gawkers & vendors hawking Arafat trinkets galore.
Tee shirts & flags and posters & CDs & books, describing his life as a secret CIA agent martyr Nobel Peace prize-winning guerilla terrorist, with still surprisingly good looks.
Quick-thinking made him open up a sewer cover & dove into an underground
sewage canal. He did the front-stroke, the backstroke & the butterfly too, ‘til he found a dry landing. Then, he walked up a few flights of stairs, snuck around the sick wards, ‘til he saw a mob of clerics on their knees, with Arafat laying there, all covered in fleas. It was all that muslin, ya know?
Dr. Jack leaped up and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Yasser! I’m here for you,” but Yasser didn’t answer & over the mob Jack rose, stood at his bedside & grabbed Yasser’s left hand and tried to revive him. Without skipping a beat, Yasser’s eyes flitted, while the mob of clerics gritted their teeth and prayed even harder, to breathe new life into their sleeping giant golem martyr. Jack reached over and rubbed his belly, then his legs, followed by his nose, as one cleric looked up and exclaimed, “Great Allah’s Ghost! We never thought of touching those!”
Well, Dr. Jack, he was doing alright, attempting to revive the great
Palestinian leader was his goal & anyway, it was far better than rotting in that Michigan penitentiary hole. So, he moved and danced his way around the room, as feelings of joy & happiness replaced the despair and gloom. Jack worked his magic, as the clerics became flirty, when suddenly Jack tripped over a long white cord & looked at the clock on the wall. It read exactly 3:30.
(1) JesuSicle Brand Popsicles-A Novel, If Not Immaculate ConfectionaryConception>The Radio Commercial…>>On-Air Announcer:> “Imagine a hot sweltering day at the church--the kind of day you’d expect inHell -- the air-conditioning is not working, the fans you have switched onare blowing around a lot of hot air, as if the preacher’s wasn’t enough, andto make matters worse, children are screaming and running around thesanctuary, very oblivious to the group religious leader. She is unable toget them to chill out until she reaches into the portable freezer and giveseach of them a cool and refreshing JesuSicle (pronounced: Gee-sick-el) brandPopsicle! Yes friends, you heard me correctly, a JesuSicle!>For all you skeptics out there, here are the sweet details! Not only is itchockfull of eight vitamins and iron, but also it is guaranteed to give yourchildren all the Holy Spirit energy and holier-than- thou power they need ona day like today!Shaped like the holy savior dying on the cross, you will be glad to knowthat JesuSicles have been given high marks in quality, appearance and tasteby theologians, TV evangelists and ministries throughout the world. Look for it in your grocer’s freezer today! Comes in Crucifixion Cherry,Sepulchered Strawberry, Holy Smoke Gray, Proud Pilate Purple, Orange YouGlad You Accepted Jesus and our newest flavor, Roman Red Raspberry.”Available in same flavor six packs and Apostle 12 Pack, consisting of two ofeach flavor. Whether in church or not, your kiddies will love the challengeof licking down both arms and head before one or all of it falls off! As anadded incentive, each JesuSicle comes with a disposable red, white and bluepaint kit with brush that your children can paint the remaining cross-shapedsticks and place them along the highways where someone had previously died. And remember brothers and sisters, Hell are hot. A cool and refreshingJesuSicle is not.Amen!
(2)Oh, Deer!
Saw a deer in the glade,
In the clear of the shade
As the cars and the traffic raced on by
I crept closer across snow-covered ground,
Made wee little sound
As her head jerked suddenly toward me and said, “Hi!”
In the twilight I just spoke,
Told a few people jokes
At first she laughed and then she cried;
“Humans can be an annoying bunch,
Instead of letting us live,
They eat us for lunch”
“We just want our peace,
We want to be left alone
Wake up with the sun and return to the thicket when the dark sends us home”
“Imagine if you would
A bridge across the sea, a herd of white-tailed deer running so free
And then beyond the Gate of Seth,
Behold! A field of humans starving to death
And we’d all gather ‘round and watch them utter their last breaths
Later on, we’d sing and pray and feast
Upon the great white threat that can no longer slaughter us like beasts
After gutting their hides like they’ve done so much to ours
We’d mount their heads the same way they display us and our antlers”
As I looked at them with surprise,
Felt a cold shudder shoot down my spine
Such ghastly acts we commit without deny
As I waved so long to her and sighed,
I walked to my car and cried.
Still, for some odd reason, I hungered for a venison burger and an order of fries
(3) The Dells
(The Bells By Edgar Allen Poe, parody with rearrangements of stanzas by Charles Bernstein)
Hear the splash of water on the dellsUgly dellsWhat a sight of homeliness
Their ugliness foretells
How they winkle, winkle, winkle
In the pale Wisconsin night
All the men seem to sprinkle
With a urinary flight
Keeping pine, pine, pine
With a bunch of tissue line
From the outhouse to the bathhouse
That so wonderfully smells
In the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
From the spraying and the sprinkling on the dells
Hear the molding of the dells
Iron dells
What a world of water parks their monopoly compels
For all the boats that float
From the $50 park tickets in our coats
And the people sit and drone
On their suburban speakerphones
And the tolling, tolling, tolling
Feels a memento mori in the bankrolling
From the robbing and the shish-kabobbing
Of the melancholy dells
Oh, the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
Oh, the ozoning and the rezoning of the dells.
Hear the robots clanging around the dells
Brazen dells
What a tall tale of useful scrap metal now
Old Tommy Bartlett tells
Much too mummified to speak
Oh, his robots can only squeak
For all eardrums are blown
When those crazy robots screech like saxophones
Roaming faster, faster, faster
Like a blending mix-master
In a amorous attempt to keep the idea from becoming farklempt
With the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
With the flim-flammering and the she-banging of the dells
Hear the noisy traffic Wisconsin dells
Golden dells
What a world of tourism
Their financial status foretells
Through the circus parades in the night
How the cash registers ring out their profit margin delight
Through the dollars and the credit cards
And the cheese concoctions that taste like vomit a la’ lard
How it smells
How it sells
On the future
How it gels
From the stringing and the bringing of the tourists to the dells
To the dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells, dells
Of the reaming and the scheming of the dells
(4)History Makes Strange Bedfellows AKA The True Ballad Of How Dr Jack Kevorkian Tried To Revive The Comatose Life Of Yasser Arafat & Failed Miserably
“No prison can hold me in time of need. Gotta go help my friend dying in a
Paris bed. Gotta go fix him good, so he don’t wind up dead,” Dr. Jack
Kevorkian to reporters in Paris, on why he escaped a Michigan state
penitentiary in early morning hours of November 10, 2004.
This here’s the story of how Dr. Jack Kevorkian tried to alter history, but
instead made it miserable for his late dear friend Yasser Arafat. It’s a
true story, I swear to Allah…
Late one night in prison cell two, Dr. Jack was kickin’ back with nothin’
better to do, when suddenly he received a telekinetic message from his old
friend Yasser, calling out, “Come to Paris right away! I need you!”
Well, Dr. Jack didn’t have time to pack. He slipped through the bars and
made his escape.
Meanwhile, back at the penitentiary, the floodlights went up, the dogs were
a-sniffin’ about as badly as watching old Scottie Pippin limping off a
basketball court. They wrote the report & then came that old familiar sound:
Calling all cars! Calling all cars! The greatest manhunt ever assembled &
manifested on prison grounds, because most people assumed what old Dr. Jack
was really up to…
He crawled & he swam. He walked & he ran. He thumbed & he crammed himself a ride to Detroit International. There was no stopping Dr. Jack, as he ran
down the airport gangway & toward the entrance of a Paris-bound plane.
“Take me to Yasser!” he screamed.
“Are you insane?” the pilots countered.
Dr. Jack produced a needle & a set of rubber tubes. Well, sir, those pilots didn’t
need any more convincing, so off they flew, over the clouds and past the oceans. Turned right at Greenland & flew by England, when at last they arrived in Paris at 1 a.m., only to be confronted by a crowd of French coppers, waiting to click him in cuffs & take him back to Detroit.
But that Jack! Was he clever or what! The sly euthanasia pioneer eluded the
cops, needling them one-by-one as he sailed passed, watching each man point,
click & fall holding their guns, for the very last time.
As 1 a.m., fell into 1:30, he caught a cab & told the driver to step on it fast. The cab drove on until it reached the infirmary, got out and saw the place was crawling with soldiers & coppers & mourners & press corps & gawkers & vendors hawking Arafat trinkets galore.
Tee shirts & flags and posters & CDs & books, describing his life as a secret CIA agent martyr Nobel Peace prize-winning guerilla terrorist, with still surprisingly good looks.
Quick-thinking made him open up a sewer cover & dove into an underground
sewage canal. He did the front-stroke, the backstroke & the butterfly too, ‘til he found a dry landing. Then, he walked up a few flights of stairs, snuck around the sick wards, ‘til he saw a mob of clerics on their knees, with Arafat laying there, all covered in fleas. It was all that muslin, ya know?
Dr. Jack leaped up and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Yasser! I’m here for you,” but Yasser didn’t answer & over the mob Jack rose, stood at his bedside & grabbed Yasser’s left hand and tried to revive him. Without skipping a beat, Yasser’s eyes flitted, while the mob of clerics gritted their teeth and prayed even harder, to breathe new life into their sleeping giant golem martyr. Jack reached over and rubbed his belly, then his legs, followed by his nose, as one cleric looked up and exclaimed, “Great Allah’s Ghost! We never thought of touching those!”
Well, Dr. Jack, he was doing alright, attempting to revive the great
Palestinian leader was his goal & anyway, it was far better than rotting in that Michigan penitentiary hole. So, he moved and danced his way around the room, as feelings of joy & happiness replaced the despair and gloom. Jack worked his magic, as the clerics became flirty, when suddenly Jack tripped over a long white cord & looked at the clock on the wall. It read exactly 3:30.
Wednesday, March 30
Die Terri Schiavo Die
is terri schiavo dead yet? if not, i sure hope it will be soon. the woman deserves a little peace & quiet after these many years of being in a spotlight, reportedly that she never asked to be in. Her parents see fit to keep her alive, despite the fact she is brain-dead. the court systems have denied them, yet they persist. the protesters want her alive & have done everything from sending children with cups of water for her, who then are promptly arrested & have used opportunities such as the easter week as a stem for their cause. don't these demonstrators have anything better to do than to stand outside a hospice & demand that a human vegetable be fed for what could likely end up for years & years & years & years to come? are they (the protesters) going to pay for terri? i highly doubt it. what is the real purpose to having terri being kept alive, other than the fact her parents can feed off of her tragedy? as much as the parents paint themselves up as caring for their daughter, i really believe there is a different motivation afoot, something that they aren't talking about publically & that is money! no doubt behind the scenes, they have been offered exclusive deals for books, television movies & the like. no one seems to talk about these sorts of things. perhaps because they are too wound up in their own worlds for the moment. so please folks, let terri schavio die already & maybe we can all get us some sleep!
Tuesday, March 29
Mouse In The House
lately, i've had a mouse problem in my apartment, i killed a total of 16 mice in a 2 week period, no thanks to my landlord. it helped break writer's block nonetheless & so, i'd like to share one of the several poems i have written on the subject. hope you enjoy it...
Mouse Number Nine
Mouse Number Nine,
Doesn’t have time to die
So elusive, Mouse Number Nine watches from a corner the traps being laid by the Richard Speck of mouse-killers
Horrified, Mouse Number Nine watches, as its entire family is murdered
One by one by one by one by one by one by one by one
Mouse Number Nine devises a plan to hole up inside an untouched box, crafty as a fox, so it believes
Mouse Number Nine goes on a hunger strike to get itself ready for the final assault, but in the fourth hour, the idea begins to sour,
And all Mouse Number Nine could think of, was food
Now’s there’s a crazy theory, that just makes me sneeze
About cats chasing mice that nibble on cheese
And dogs that chase cats that chase mice
And those poor field mice, like Mouse Number Nine that never get enough to eat
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
(written March 8, 2005)
Mouse Number Nine
Mouse Number Nine,
Doesn’t have time to die
So elusive, Mouse Number Nine watches from a corner the traps being laid by the Richard Speck of mouse-killers
Horrified, Mouse Number Nine watches, as its entire family is murdered
One by one by one by one by one by one by one by one
Mouse Number Nine devises a plan to hole up inside an untouched box, crafty as a fox, so it believes
Mouse Number Nine goes on a hunger strike to get itself ready for the final assault, but in the fourth hour, the idea begins to sour,
And all Mouse Number Nine could think of, was food
Now’s there’s a crazy theory, that just makes me sneeze
About cats chasing mice that nibble on cheese
And dogs that chase cats that chase mice
And those poor field mice, like Mouse Number Nine that never get enough to eat
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
(written March 8, 2005)
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