e

Monday, April 23, 2007

All Right, Then, How About This?

I spent Saturday at a professional seminar, where I was able to patch up My Funny Valentine a bit, and on, my way to the office this morning, I finished it up. Here's how it now stands:

Our Boy is thirty-nine.
(He claims he's thirty-nine;
My cat just laughed till it cried.)

Did some rich Darien
Octogenarian
Leave you her wrinkles when she died?

Have you gained a little weight?
Are you past your "sell-by" date?
And that wisp upon your pate—
Is it dyed?

Well, don't set the cat alight;
I'm just your satellite.
Why let your satellite dish?
We'll say you're thirty-nine . . . ish.

Lyric © 2007 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Coining a phrase like don't sent the cat alight is the sort of sophomoric, pretentious, bone-lazy thing I'd have done twenty or thirty years ago. But until a better three-syllable rhyme comes along, one that will lead into a rhyme for ish, it will have to stand.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Birthday Song

Yesterday, I received word through the grapevine that my ol' pal, Jerry Scott, is being feted this coming May 11 at his new watering hole, Nino's Tuscany, on account of his allegedly thirty-ninth birthday.

Naturally, this calls for a song. It's about as catty as I can manage, for a first draft; to the tune of Rodgers's My Funny Valentine:

Our Jerry's thirty-nine.
He's turning thirty-nine.
—Now (though I hate to be snide!):

Did some old Darien
Octogenarian
Leave you her crow's feet when she died?

Have you gained a little weight?
Are you past your "sell-by" date?
And that hair upon your pate—
Is it dyed?

Well, why be malevolent?
(God knows, it's prevalent.)
I've come to praise him, not dish.
Let's say he's thirty-nine . . . ish.

Lyric © 2007 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Mercifully short. The malevolent/prevalent bit needs to be replaced, but that's all I can think of at the mo.
Ultra Linking