Sleep

That's what my recent life seems to contain everything but. Up till 2:00 ack emma the past two nights, and up at 6:00 ditto the past two mornings. I'm getting too old for this routine.

Running around Christmasing hasn't stopped me from finally fixing an error in scansion in A Kickback From You. The original release runs as follows, and all good Porter fans know:

I get a kick ev'ry time I see
You standing there before me;
I get a kick, tho' it's clear to me
You obviously don't adore me.

To which I wrote:

I get a kickback for making calls
To line up girls named "Lola";
I get my cut, just for having balls
Enough to extort payola.

The problem was the usual: I had relied on my own lousy memory for the melody of Porter's release, instead of consulting the sheet music, as God and the United States Forest Service intended.

For what Porter (the li'l rascal!) did was to put the last syllable of obviously on a downbeat, of all things; followed immediately by a cakewalk-like accent on the second beat for don't. Absolutely wrong by every rule in the book, and yet so obviously right. One more drop in the sea of The Master's genius.

My parody, in consequence, had the singer EX-torting. As soon as I discovered the screw-up, I substituted a hasty line up for extort, but I was never happy with it. How could I be? Line up only served to hide my Secret Shame.

Well, after weeks of intermittent brainstorming, I've come up with the following substitute. It's a pedestrian gag, but the scansion pleases my ear:

I get a kickback for bribing knaves
With babes like Babs and Lola;
I get a kickback for hosting raves
With coke that ain't Coca-Cola®.

Lyric © 2007 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

As a final note, Happy Boxing Day, folks! And don't forget that today (or was it last night?) is the anniversary of the day on which Good King Sauerkraut looked out, on his feets uneven. (Thank you, Churchy La Femme, wherever you are!)