Alec Baldwin, Barbra Streisand, Marlon Brando, et al.

I don't relish posting a half-finished effort here, but this site is supposed to be about work-in-progress, and work-in-progress is certainly what this is: a parody of Warren's On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

The ending was written first.

What to do about that crazy release of Mercer's, though? Бог знает, if that's how you spell it.

Anyway, the lyric:

When Al Qaeda bombs the Pentagon,
Celebrities will organize a telethon—
Till September 12th, when they fly away
Back to Aspen and Tahiti—and to St. Tropez.

When the market outlook’s none too good,
There’s cheery camaraderie in Hollywood,
Just as long as things still are A-OK
Back in Aspen and Tahiti—and in St. Tropez.

[Here she comes!
Ooh-ooh-ooh,
Ooh-ooh,
Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh,]
Hey, Jim! You bet the game is rigged.

[Ooh-ooh-ooh,
Ooh-ooh,
Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh,]
Celebrities have got it made? Well, I’ll be jigged!

When Katrina wipes out New Orleans,
The movie stars‘ll rally ‘round with pork-and-beans;
But they hoard foie gras and crème brûlée
Back in Aspen and Tahiti—and in St. Tropez.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Bombs the Pentagon scans funkily, and still are A-OK isn't exactly idiomatic, but I can't think what to do about it.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, By Gum!

So this evening, I sang the first four lines of Why Don't You Do Right to my daughter; I then cross-examined her to make sure that she'd heard about the recent contretemps anent Vice President Cheney; and then I sang to her my one-liner. She didn't get it.

And why didn't she get it, you ask (or, at least, I ask)? Because, God help us, she's never heard of Mr. Magoo!!!

Recently, the New York Post predicted that a person in my circs would be dead before age 60. I certainly hope so. I don't think I can put up with this world much longer.

Another Potshot at Cheney

On my way to work this morning, a one-liner about Vice President Cheney occurred to me, to the tune of McCoy's Why Don't You Do Right (memorably sung by Miss Peggy Lee):

He hunts for Osama, and be-
Fore he's through,
He takes down a lawyer with a
.22:
He's Dudley Do-Right.
Also Mr. Magoo.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

I see no reason to take this any further. Not even to finish the section (you know, the line that goes, "Get out of here, and get me some money, too").

Darn Ira Gershwin, Anyway!

Last Saturday afternoon, my DAMP and I were chewing the fat, talking of this and that, when a tag for a parody of Vernon Duke's I Can't Get Started with You popped into the noggin, along with the first three lines to set it up.

Since it's just a glorified "list" song along the lines of You're the Top, I figured that filling in the blanks would be a piece of cake; but no. The release, or bridge, or middle eight, or whatever you want to call it, is a bitch. I've been walking around in a daze (deeper than usual, even for me) for three days now, rasslin' with it.

This morning, something finally came to me, and I bunged it down and whipped through the ending without any thought whatever:

My friends and neighbors say that I’m thick;
I’m just about as dumb as a brick;
I voted twice for Carter—
But still I’m smarter than you.

Although I purchased Enron at par,
And think the Yugo’s quite a good car,
No matter how subhuman,
I’ve more acumen than you.

Your IQ’s low—
I’ve made a graph of it.
Slow?
You’re Chief of Staff of it.
No,
That ain’t the half of it—
You just don’t have a clue.

I looked at Love and gave it a try;
I thought Romance was easy as pie,
I still believed in Cupid—
Yet I’m not as stupid as you.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Liberty . . . Who Needs It?

Three recent headlines in the Nyok Times have got my dander up: U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster, British Parliament Votes to Ban Smoking in Public and A Bit of Good News for Blair: ID Cards for Britons Advance.

The American reaction to the Palestinian election mystifies me. I'd thought that, from our POV, it was all to the good: a people exiled for sixty years and unofficially "represented" by the weasel Arafat and his gang of thieves and cutthroats has finally instituted new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. All experience hath shewn, that few events are more certain to put the kibosh on civil strife. It hath also shewn, that nothing is more likely to civilize Hamas than turning it into the Establishment. Never before has there been so much reason to hope for a world with both peace in the Middle East and a State of Israel.

But America, the global champion of democracy (so long as somebody we like can be elected), is mulling over ways to interfere in the Palestinians' internal affairs, undo what They the People have done, and generally scuttle the Palestinian ship of state. Islam will be perfectly justified in taking steps to sabotage our next Presidential election. It would only be fair.

Meanwhile, the Brits are following in "Uncle Joe" Bloomberg's steps, and instituting a national ban on smoking. The excuse offered, that pub workers are entitled to a smoke-free workplace, is the same silly excuse that Bloomberg used. What in Sam Hill prevents these pub workers from seeking work elsewhere, if they so desire? Not a goddam thing. If smoke-free pubs and restaurants were truly needed, the marketplace would provide them. That the marketplace has not done so suggests that nobody wants 'em, at least not enough to put his money where his mouth is. The marketplace can give gummint cards and spades and still beat the pants off it, when it comes to building a free and just society, because the marketplace, unlike gummint, has the ability to tell whether a situation is really a problem or not. If the marketplace can't be bothered to fix something, it never was a problem to begin with.

Meanwhile, the Mother Country plans to eradicate liberty, by introducing national ID cards. If we're going to coin a term for these things, we'd better do it now, before we lose the power to coin expressions altogether. I nominate Winstons. And I don't mean cigarettes, bub!

When the revolution comes, blood will flow in Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Starbucks, Take Two

I've spent a couple of days working on my Hymn of Hate to Starbucks, fixing a couple of rhythmic errors and tightening the vulgar abuse, so that it's more focused, although still vulgar. In doing so, I find that I've built into it a sort of meta-joke: after complaining that Starbucks coffee is lousy, the song complains, like the little old ladies in the joke, "And the portions are so small, too!"

One difficulty in parodying the song is the closing lines. As with so many rock songs, the original lyric doesn't fit the music particularly well. All the delinquencies of popular lyric-writing in the 1890's, and more, have returned to haunt us. Here's the closing gibberish:

SING, sing, song, si-
ING, sing, sing, sing
SONG.

Now, what in the name of Stephen Collins Foster is "si-ING"? "Hey-ell! That thar's sink-o-PAY-shun!!" Right. But how does the syncopation add drama, or character? How does it capture the vital rhythms of spoken American English? Contrast one of my favorite examples from ragtime, the lyrics to the verse of May Irwin's If You Don't Have Any Money, as edited by Max Morath:

SAT down
and WROTE
My gal [BEAT]
A note—
SAID I'd be THERE,
At
SEV-en on the DOT.

Now, that's American English. And on top of that, it conveys intensity of feeling. To answer, "Well, the singer of Starshine is stoned out of her gourd," may be true, but it's a cop-out, as they used to say 'way back when.

Anyway—here's a revised lyric:

Good goin’, Starbucks—
But have you no shame?
No coffee to speak of,
Except in your name.

Good golly, Starbucks!
I need my caffeine.
Your coffee's got everything—
Except the freakin' coffee bean.

Jelly bean java,
Praline cappuccino,
With caramel swirl;
Gingerbread jamocha,
Jujube Jamaican,
Fit for a girl;
Coco-macchiato,
Macaroon espresso—
Screwin' up a cup o' joe.

Good gravy, Starbucks!
You call that a cup?
Someday you’ll surprise me
By filling one up.

Good riddance, Starbucks!
You’re out of my life.
I wouldn’t buy what you sling
To please a dying trophy wife.

"Tiny tot" grande,
Teeny-weeny venti,
With plenty of foam;
Lilliputian leche,
Miniature dolce
(Top up the foam!);
Microscopic mocha,
Meager macchiato—
Screwin' up a cup o' joe.

Coughin’ up jack,
Collarin’ joe
Just to pour down the john;
Coughin’ up jack,
Collarin’ joe
To pour down the john;
Cough up ja-ack,
Collar jo-oe—
Somethin' in this pic-
Ture’s just plain wrong.
Somethin' in this pic-
Ture’s just plain wrong.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Starbucks Travails

Starbucks, from the moment it crossed my horizon, rubbed me the wrong way. I entered one early on, took one look at the baroque menu with its stomach-churning prices, and quietly moved on to the greasy spoon down the street run by persons of indeterminate nationality. All I'd wanted was a cup of coffee, you see.

It was an emergency that first forced me to buy something at a Starbucks: I was somewhere in Midtown with my (then) seven-or-eight-year-old daughter in tow, when she informed me that she needed a restroom, and she needed it now. We looked about us, but saw nothing that seemed to offer oasis except a Starbucks. We entered; I choked back a retching sense that I was about to be victimized but was helpless to prevent it; ordered the cheapest thing I could find; and then deposited my daughter at the end of the queue for the jakes, which was so long that it had snaked its way the length of the shop. Ten minutes later, she was halfway along the queue, when she left the line to say that it was hopeless to wait and that we must go elsewhere. Get back in that line! I hissed (not easy to do with a sentence containing no sibilants), and led her back to the queue, where a couple of gay men who obviously understood my predicament very kindly allowed her to resume her place. If only I'd learned the gentlemen's names, I'd have remembered them in my will.

I was content never to enter another Starbucks until I began online dating. Starbucks is, by some tacit agreement to which I've not been made privy, the designated rendezvous for blind dates. I saw a number of Starbuckses in 2004 and even a couple in 2005. I had no occasion to revise my opinion that anyone who willingly patronizes a Starbucks is a goddam fool.

But it was not until the autumn of 2005, when I was shepherding a visitor from the Pacific Northwest around and about the City and New England, that Starbucks was crammed down my throat. This visitor believed that, whenever a weary traveler desires a wee break, Starbucks is just the place to get it. It was now that I finally found, tucked away in a corner of that Napoleonic-Code-sized menu, a reference to coffee. Just plain, black coffee. No caramel, no cinnamon, no latte (Newspeak for milk), no nothin'. I ordered it. It was so bitter, I thought for a moment that I had been served hemlock by mistake. At the next Starbucks, I ordered it again. Hemlock again. When I was served hemlock for the third time, I began to see a trend: this freakin' band of highway robbers hadn't any idea how to make a freakin' cup of coffee.

Which brings us to today's rough draft, to the tune of Good Morning, Starshine, from Hair. And may I say that the song suits the subject? Of all the doppy jingles, utterly lacking in any lyrical substance whatsoever, Good Morning, Starshine takes the cake. In short, a typical rock song.

Good goin’, Starbucks—
But have you no shame?
No coffee to speak of,
Except in your name.

Good golly, Starbucks!
I need my caffeine.
Your java's got everything—
Except the freakin' coffee bean.

Lily-livered latte,
Crappy cappuccino,
With caramel swirl;
Mucky macchiato,
Possum-piss espresso,
Fit for a girl;
Gingerbread jamocha,
Jujube Jamaican—
Screwin' up a cuppa joe.

Good gravy, Starbucks!
You call that a cup?
Someday you’ll surprise me
By filling one up.

Good riddance, Starbucks!
You’re out of my life.
I wouldn’t buy what you sling
To please a dying trophy wife.

Itsy-bitsy grande,
Teeny-weeny venti,
With plenty of foam;
Lilliputian leche,
Miniature dolce,
Oh, yes—and foam;
Microscopic mocha,
Meager macchiato—
Screwin' up a cuppa joe.

Coughin’ up jack,
Collarin’ joe to
Pour down the john;
Coughin’ up jack,
Collarin’ joe to
Pour down the john;
Cough up jack,
Collar joe—
Somethin' in this pic-
Ture’s just plain wrong.
Somethin' in this pic-
Ture’s just plain wrong.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Berlin, né Baline

An idea for a parody of Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine came to me a couple of weeks ago, the subject being Oedipus Rex. That one went nowhere fast. But by a free association of ideas cryptic even to me, the subject evolved into Irving Berlin. This time, something came of it, but only after a ghastly sweat that will be evident to my faithful readers as soon as they lay their eyes on the following.

The premise of the song—and here, Ron, my DAMP, suggests that we throw together a sort of a verse to set the whole thing up—is that Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline; but, when his first song was published in 1907, a printer’s error credited the music to one I. Berlin. Israel took the name, ran with it, and never looked back. The theme I was hoping to convey was that, when one has a mission in life, don't sweat the small stuff, like a misspelled name; but alas! for the fetters of rhyme and rhythm—that theme hasn't come across very well in the following. In fact, I’m dashed if I can figure out what half the lines mean, and I wrote the blasted thing.

Still, here it is, in the roughest of drafts (and if you don’t know the original song all the way through, shame on you! Go and learn it):

Irving Berlin was “Baline,”
Till somebody’s typographical error.
But did Irving gripe? Or tremble in terror?
Or write to The Times? Or erupt in spleen?

He said, “When in Rome, go with the flow,”
And then he went home and started composing;
And, when he was done, signed it, in closing,
Irving Berlin—not Baline.

The fortunes of war reward the deserving,
Especially when something’s at stake.
A misspelled name we might have found unnerving;
Berlin was unswerving—Irving was jake.

The moral’s as clear as aquamarine:
When someone drives up in a hearse, make certain you’re busy;
Don’t make a wee glitch any worse by having a tizzy
And causing one hell of a scene.

Is it Irving Berlin–or Baline?
Is his handle the former name, or still the latter?
If his music remains the same, what does it matter
Whether Berlin is Baline?

By becoming Berlin, did Baline show the way:
Always dare to drink deep, and risk delirium tremens.
So if Life, now and then (tsk, tsk!), offers you lemons,
Simply make lemonade—and mix it with gin;
Make a Berlin from Baline.
Make like Berlin-slash-Baline!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov