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A person who needs no introduction.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

The Zombie of Oz

ZOMBIE WARNING: Song about Zombies. If you don't like zombies, and zombie activities, don't read the song. Or sing it. You can hum it, if you don't think about the lyrics while you're doing it. So anyway, this should be sung by an undead Ray Bolger in 1939, and it includes the verse, which doesn't appear in that movie, except (I think) as an underscore to some of the dancing. I know we used it for that when I was in this on stage, anyway. Okay, you've been zombie warned. Now comes the zombie part:


Said a dead man, lurching to his feet:
"I'd be happy, if I had some meat!
Not just any meat, of course--
I wouldn't eat squirrel or lion or tiger or horse...
But I sure would like your brain!

Zombies hunger once they pop off,
And crave to pop your top off
For pudding you contain
I would do you in discreetly
And give thanks to you most sweetly
If I only had your brain!

I would smile while I'm a-munchin'
The warm cerebral luncheon
You fight against in vain.
I would happily get crackin'
And I'd save the rest for snackin'
If I only had your brain!

Oh, I
Could bake a pie
Or canapes galore
I could relish it on crackers by the score
It's just the taste
That I adore.

I'm so sorry this portrayal
Might strike you as betrayal
And bring you fear and pain
But I'd never have to miss you
While I scarfed your nervous tissue
If I only had your brain!

reprise:
I regret this will be bloody
Though I was once your buddy
But think of what we'll gain
'Cause the bright side is, you'll love us
And be one of us--one OF us
If I only have your brain!


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Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Memes Help Us Avoid Doing Anything Productive!



On Twitter, Tom Tomorrow (I think it was) said "The dog in the fire saying 'This is fine' meme peaked too soon. We could use it now." Or something like that. I said "How about if the dog was out walking with a fire and saw another fire and said This is Fine while the first fire looks unhappy at him?"

This got me some of the attention I crave, and one person even said they'd like to see that. So, since I have nothing better to do, I made it so.


And there it is. I left out the caption. Just lazy, I guess.

footnotes:

original guy looking back meme (from Getty Images):
 

original dog and fire meme (by K.C. Green)--my proportions were a compromise between the sources:

 
So now it's funny, huh? Funny? Get it? Funny??
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Saturday, April 25, 2020

BORN TO BE LOUD

[ttto: Born To BeWild by Steppenwolf]

Get your blower running
Head up on the driveway
Lookin' for some dead leaves
Or whatever will fly 'way

Yeah, we're gonna make it happen
Kick the world in a lovin' place
Fire all of 'em up at once and
Explode in its face!

BORN TO BE LOUD
BORN TO BE LOUD

We like smoke and loud noise
Any kind of thunder
Only play with loud toys
When we're plowin' nature under

Yeah we're going to make it happen
Make this lawn like a graveyard lot
Feed every blade of grass and
Then poison what's not

BORN TO BE LOUD
(mmMMMMMMmmm)
BORN TO BE LOUD...

We love cool, deadly toys
We were born, born to make noise
Gonna feel so proud
We're the loudest of the loud

BORN TO BE LOUD
(Vroom vroom vroom )
BORN TO BE LOUD
(Vroom vroom vroom )
BORN TO BE LOUD
(Repeat without fading)...
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Dedicated to the guy next door at 8:45 am.

Fifty Fifty (Keep it Fair)


Fifty Fifty

[ttto: Roving Gambler--traditional]

I am the rag of record, job's to keep it fair
Whenever I discern two sides
My stand's between them there
Stand's between them there, stand's between them there.

A liar got in office and he gaslit all around
I stood up straight beside him
And split the difference down
Split the difference down, split the difference down.

He poisoned air and water that the others had kept clean
And I declared right then and there
"The truth lies in between
Truth lies in between, truth lies in between."

He lied by noon and morning and lied some more at night
The others stood for truth and I said
"Each side is half right
Each side is half right, each side is half right."

He treated his position as a self-enriching game
And I pushed out my chest and said
"Both sides are to blame
Both sides are to blame, both sides are to blame."

He stole and robbed at random, hired hacks as bad as he
And I retailed his lies and said
"Some would disagree
Some would disagree, some would disagree."

And now he says drink bleach, folks, inject a Lysol spray
I wear my wisest face and write
"Dems in disarray
Dems in disarray, dems in disarray."

We're seeing widespread death now and ruin's in the air
And I stand proud and say it loud
"I always kept it fair
Always kept it fair, always kept it fair."


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Friday, April 24, 2020

Safety

I

Years and years ago, in Georgia, during our poor days, we were at a yard sale and I spotted a chainsaw for just $10. It was small, bright yellow, and just $10. I put in a suggestion on it, but it was determined that our financial situation couldn't bear even a cute yellow ten-dollar chainsaw. I moved on, as one does.

II

Five or six years later, there was a weird situation at our apartment. Someone was honking endlessly at the apartments next door to our units, and I finally went over and told the driver that it seemed likely nobody was home, or they’d have come out, and they left, and when I turned around, several folks from my apartment unit had come out and were watching, and made comments about me being brave to go over like that with nothing in my hand.

My next door neighbor, the architect, reached behind himself and held up a.45-looking pistol that he'd had tucked in the waistband of his jogging pants. Other neighbors said some words that gave me an impression there might have been a shotgun or rifle nearby as well.

It felt a little odd, going back inside like everything was normal and all over, and I reminded Cathy of the time she hadn’t let me buy the little chainsaw at the yard sale. “Because, you know,” I said, “A man should be able to protect his home.”

And I figured then, as I do now, that if I was a burglar in someone’s home, and I heard a chainsaw start up in the next room, I’d simply leave.

But I guess I’ll never know! I don't have a chainsaw.
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S1K - 034 to 039 [15 songs] (55 so far)

S1K - 034 to 039 [15 songs] (55 so far)
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what, again?Continuing our methodical walk through The Book of a Thousand Songs [Wier, 1918]

p 34: "The Blue Bells of Scotland" Scottish folk song written by Dora Jordan and first published in 1801. Sufficiently well known that I've heard of it, maybe because Leroy Anderson made a version of it.

"Boat Song" by Carl Maria Von Weber. Can't find any references to this, so it could be a repurposed opera aria, or an idiosyncratic translation.

"Blow, Boys, Blow" (A Hoisting Chantey Song) is originally from slave-trading days, but the references to the Congo River and race are not included in the two short verses reprinted here. (Except in very special cases, this book only gives two verses of a song, period.)

p 35: "Baby Mine," an 1874 sentimental song about a father coming home from the sea, by Archibald Johnson. I looked up the remaining verse and was surprised to find that the father did not meet a horrible fate just before coming home.

"Baby Bunting," an anonymous lullaby with a pleasant lilt. This was on an album of lullabies I used to play to Sarah sometimes at bedtime.

"Baa! Baa! Black Sheep" is a nursery rhyme to the same tune as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "A, B, C," and the French "Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman," for which Mozart wrote some variations that are still popular.

p 36: "Bonnie Charlie" is a traditional Scots tune used for a setting to a poem by Lady Nairne (Carolina Oliphant), known for "saccharine imitations of Jacobian songs." This is an imitation of a Jacobian song, set in the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who reportedly was hosted by her family back in the day. Book credits Finley Dun, who doesn't seem to have a thing to do with it.

"The Blue Juniata" was immensely popular in the 19th century. Mark Twain mentioned it, the Sons of the Pioneers recorded it in 1937, with the deep voice and fiddle of Hugh Farr front and center. Mrs. Marion Dix Sullivan wrote it in 1844.

"Ba-Be-Bi-Bo-Bu," uncredited in the book, appears to be by my main man, Philadephia composer Septimus Winner! Just eight bars long, it gets longer if you put every consonant in the alphabet into it for twenty-one verses. Ca-Ce-Ci-Co-Cu, and like that there. Also known as "Spelling Bee," and it could predate Winner (who was often just collecting and publishing songs, and complicated the issue sometimes by using other names and so on). It lived on well past him in a different form as "Swinging the Alphabet," and was used in the 1938 Three Stooges short Violent is the Word for Curly (where they stopped just short of an apparent naughty word in the F verse), as well as the 1980 cult film FORBIDDEN ZONE (which sang the F out of the F verse) that was Danny Elfman's first movie score. It's the only song Larry, Moe, and Curly sang in its entirety, lip-synching their own voices.

p 37: "Begone! Dull Care" is found in Playford's 1687 Musical Companion, and might be by him or might not. It's a recurring joke in a series of comic strips by "Little Nemo" creator Winsor McCay, who depicts a character lugging a satchel with the words DULL CARE on it. Metaphor. At first it sounds like it's going to be "Plaisir d'Amore," but not quite.

"Blow The Man Down" is a well-known sea chantey, written before the 1860s. The title seems to refer to either a man being knocked over by a swinging sail, or a man-of-war suffering a loss of balance that could be pretty serious. Author? Yeah, right.

"Bohunkus" uses the tune of "Auld Lang Syne, and apparently originated around 1891 at Ohio State University, where it was a favorite of the Men's Glee. The burlesque lyrics concern a pair of brothers, Bohunkus and Josephus, who each had a suit of clothes, went to the theater, and died. One went to heaven, the other to a place that varies from one singer to the next. Some say Hell, some say Delaware or Michigan.

p 38: "The British Grenadiers" has a tune that seems to date back to early 17th century. It shows up in Playford in 1728 as "The New Bath," and was first printed as "The Granadeer's March" in 1706, gaining its lyrics between 1735-50. It's been an official march in a number of militaries for centuries now.

"The Brown Hair'd Maiden" is a Scotch song (it says here), whose traditional lyrics were translated into English in the 19th century by Scottish poet John Stuart Blackie. It's been used as a regimental march. Original title was "The Nut Brown Maiden" and some continue to use this title.

p 39: "The Bridge" has a definite writer and composer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Maria Lindsay (who also composed as Mrs. J. Worthington Bliss, and I wonder if the "Honest John" character in Pinocchio got his name--J. Worthington Foulfellow--from this monicker). The song is a somber one, with the author contemplating suicide. I don't know how it comes out, and whether her husband the Reverend would have approved if the song surrendered to the urge to self-terminate. This version, which fills a whole page, is (like most of the book) a choral rendition, and I might be missing all sorts of cool accompaniment figures. The only recording I found in a cursory web search has someone singing it with his own accompaniment.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

the train sonnet


LINES OF INQUIRY
On the streets, our steps make tracks not seen
Above the tracks, long snaking train forms hover
Which show, or would if vision were more keen
Air populated by our breaths o'er ground we cover.

No sage can tell how long these paths remain
Or how much harm they do if two paths cross.
It might fade in an hour, this phantom train,
Or linger for uncalculable loss!

Don't cross those tracks: Your fate may hang upon
Not catching them, so keep your path from theirs.
Though impulse leads you where your friends have gone,
The voice of reason whispers loud: Take cares!

Steer clear those tracks unseen all walkers leave:
Beware the tangled webs our footsteps weave!


kw 20200422 
(posting delayed until today, Shakespeare's putative 456th birthday)
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Wednesday, April 22, 2020

The song in DFT's heart

Oh, beautiful for unmarked bills
For checks made out to me,
For money owed to trusting shills--
The dough they'll never see!

Emoluments, emoluments,
It's lovely to be me!
I'm living large on every charge
From fee to shining fee!

Emoluments from foreign lands
Large loans from many states
And aid that winds up in my hands
From foes my nation hates!

Emoluments, emoluments,
I get them all the time,
And make my job a chance to rob,
From crime to lovely crime!

Emoluments for golf course graft
I charge each time I go
I've double dipped and loudly laughed
More than you'll ever know!

Emoluments, emoluments,
By right they're mine for free
Grease crooked palms with unearned alms
That all come back to me!

Emoluments for golf cart rent
My Secret Service needs
To do their job in government
That feeds me as it bleeds.

Emoluments, emoluments,
Oh, may they never cease.
I'll be, I swear, a billionaire
From all the shills I fleece!

Emoluments from family biz
That skirts around the laws
Each grown-up child gets hers or his
Clutched firm in family paws!

Emoluments, emoluments,
That trickle through my kin
My heart goes thump at every chump:
My god, how it rolls in!

I met the ghost of Tammany
Who'd never wept before,
But tears fell fast, as "Sir," said he
"You've topped my grift, and more!

"Emoluments, emoluments,
I doff my hat to you!
You've grabbed the pelf, enriched yourself,
In ways we never knew!"
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Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Attention, Vaguely Competent People!

Anybody know how to make the "like" counters go away? I tried to install one that would let people upvote posts, and instead I have two (2!) reminders of my incredible popularity, which I am too modest to keep looking at.

Note: I clicked each one one time.
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The Old Reliable

First sketched twenty years ago: plus ca change! I drew it up last night, just as I was about to turn in, and might redraw it when I'm wide awake, just so the lettering will be legible.


Every so often, I'm glad I went out and bought ink for my technical pens before all this started. Just noticed that I didn't shade one of his sleeves and have fixed it. Not here, just on the 3" x 4" card it's drawn on.
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Sunday, April 19, 2020

Status Report

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Patter on windows.
Passers-by adjust their coats.
Street becomes shiny.
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Friday, April 17, 2020

Little Pigs Three


Also in 2007, in response to a fragment someone else in the filk group had put forward, I wrote this facet of the tale in the cadences of Eugene Field's affecting "Little Boy Blue," a classic of Americana from a generally intoxicated Denver newspaperman who also penned "Three Dutch Fishermen," better known as "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." His work is well worth revisiting. Here, however, is one he did not write:

LITTLE WOLF BLEW

[after Eugene Field]

The little grass hut has been tumbled down
   And scattered across many lands;
And the little stick house has been spread around
   Carried off by various hands.
Time was when the little grass hut was new,
   And the stick house was trim and fair;
And that was the time when those Little Pigs Two
   Lazily built them there.

"Now don't come in to my house," they said,
   "By the hair of my chinny-chin chin!"
And off each went to his flimsy bed
   And slept with a piggy grin,
And, as they were dreaming, a wolf so bad
   Came to their small dwellings and blew
Oh! so very strong were the lungs he had
   And the grasses and sticks, he did strew.

Ay, off on the winds of the Wolf they went,
   And nothing remained in place--
Not one single stem or twig was unbent
   To shelter a little pig's face,
And they wondered, they wondered, as they did flee
   And they ran through the woods so thick:
Would they find shelter with Little Pig Three
   Who they mocked when he built with brick?
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Nicemare 

A baker's dozen of years ago, I would play one or the other disk of lullabies oftentimes as my daughter would finally go to sleep. I was somehow reminded of art gallery receptions, but it may remind others of affairs more suited to their own bailiwicks.

Bailiwicks.
Bailiwicks. Bailiwicks.
Anyway.

NICEMARE 

Nod a while, chat and smile 
While the clients place some orders 
When they leave, you may have 
All the pretty little hors d'oeuvres. 

Canapes, pastries on trays, 
All the pretty little hors d'oeuvres. 
Breads and bries, crackers and cheese, 
All the pretty little hors d'oeuvres...
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Thursday, April 09, 2020

today's haiku

"Oh, I'm not staying," 
Said the snow as it passed through, 
"Just killing some buds."

Covfefevirus Rag (after Country Joe)


Well, come on, ladies, kids, and men:
Uncle Sam's dropped the ball again,
Endangering folks like me and you,
Empowerin' th' covfefe flu,
So pack up your lives 'n' put on a mask--
We're lookin' at our biggest task!

And it's one, two, three, what're we dyin' for?
Don't touch me, I gotta keep clean!
Next stop is quarantine.
And it's five, six, seven, keep your distance, guy!
Maybe you don't have a clue, but WHOOPS! I don't wanna die.

Hey, Senate Gops you're moving fast.
Don't dare dump those doomed stocks last!
Gotta pick up more drug stocks now;
Folks'll pay for their meds somehow,
And a crisis like this is the time to act
To keep your ol' wallet packed!

And it's one, two, three...

Well, come on, FEMA, don't be late!
It's time to step right to that plate,
And deny requests from states of blue
That don't kowtow to You-Know-Who,
And if they find supplies somehow
Jump in there an' grab 'em now!

And it's one, two, three...

Come on, deniers across the land:
Touch someone with your ungloved hand.
Come on, churches, don't hesitate:
Infect your flocks, before it's too late.
You know they're all as dumb as rocks:
So quarantine 'em in a box!


And it's one, two, three, what're we dyin' for?
Don't touch me, I gotta keep clean!
Next stop is quarantine.
And it's five, six, seven, keep your distance, guy!
Maybe you don't have a clue, but WHOOPS! I don't wanna die.


[ttto: Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-To-Die Rag by Country Joe McDonald]
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