God's Waiting Room

I was thinking of the Colonnade, and it reminded me of my friend Robert's account of the one and only time we went there in 2012. Which was obviously before he died:

So, after 30 years, I finally made it to the Colonnade, the OTHER Southern lunch place next to Mary Mac's, the principal place on Ponce where people of a certain age (born when Coolidge was President) dine in Atlanta. I am (and still am) a Mary Mac's guy, the joke is, you are either a PC guy (People of Colonnade) or a Mac guy.

Mary Macs is colorful and funky. The Colonnade – I learned yesterday – is much of its time; I think the last time they may have tacked up wallpaper or vacuumed might have been when we were about to have NASA go to the moon.

All this is fine; the food – fried everything, overcooked vegetables, giganticus desserts made for The Greatest Generation, who no longer have any teeth but like giant bowls of fudge-glazed, well, fudge.

Now, my very favorite lunch pal, who has been with me for something like 20 years now, and who is as witty as Noel Coward, a talented artist, and to some extent, the guy who tortures me amusingly the best because he knows all my major and minor foibles in 1,000 ways. So, the Colonnade – you’d have to see it – is like walking into the set of the Dick Van Dyke show’s best lunch place, but Southern. Fried fish, chicken, livers, milk, green beans, fried anything. Mashed sprouts, turnips, pickles, apples, beans, anything. It’s like a Paula Deen wet dream.

Now, Best Pal is an Atlanta lad of many years, this is good territory for him, and new territory for me. We order fried this or that, it’s very economical and strange and our waiter is fun. (My pal is fun, too – the waiter was African-American, my friend ordered his chicken, and then whispered, “I said, 'Fried Chicken, Dark Meat.' Do you think he was offended?” The stuff of dreams!)

So, we’re eating, and there is a loon behind Best Pal, with, presumably, his mother, who looks quite like Anthony Perkin’s Mom in “Psycho,” staring into her buttermilk like she’d had a lobotomy along with one of the Kennedy kids in the 1940s. He had a laptop with him, and he started – God, literally, knows why – to list Methodist church names. My Best Pal jumps in as he goes along.

Methodist Man (droning voice):

Church of Christ

Church of Faithbridge

Church of The Harvest

Church of Riverbridge

Church of the Morning Star

… and, as he goes on, Best Pal, who can hear, but can’t see what he’s up to, whispers, "Shrimp creole ..."

Every time Church man takes a breath …

Church of the Covenant

Shrimp gumbo

Church of the New Covenant

Shrimp ka-bob

Now, the juicy part is, every time Best Pal and I, who are in stitches with this incantatory recitation of churches v. Bubba shrimp recipes, think he’s done, no, he starts up again, and so does Best Pal.

Church of the Woodlands … (he drones on)

Best Pal: Pan-fried, deep-fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich …

Now, this goes on for some time, until the Droning Methodist packs up his computer, picks up the remains of his mother – and get this – dons a sombrero that looks like a 1960s cartoon, and leaves.

It was cripplingly funny, which is an operative word, since I stood up with my cane, and suddenly looked around and realized EVERYONE in the Colonnade had a cane, unless they were in a chair, gurney, or hearse.

We drifted out of God’s Little Waiting Room into the afternoon where the sky virtually said “come to the light!” – and went on with our day!

A thing of beauty, but from now on, it’s Mary Mac's!

_________

1) No, We were not a couple. We were more like a double act in Vaudeville. We were "The Bob and Robert Show." Or, as Robert once said, "Shecky and Shaky."

We worked together from 9:00-5:30 every day, then sat at the bar for another few hours. We knew each other's timing and could both set up a straight line and let the other one nail the punch.

2) This might actually be the last thing of Robert's I'll ever copy edit. The guy could crank out the words, but he couldn't punctuate.

Robert’s Rules of Order

1. Be excellent to each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rph_1DODXDU

2. Do not write on the walls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY_PEcfx0CU

3. Three is the number of the count.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk

4. The rules are ... there ain't no rules!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b08DChU5qsg

5. No wire hangers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOILKHmZBwc

6. There is no Rule Six.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gw1Ur62x0Q&t=1s

7. No chewing gum on line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcokL59jeqU

8. Don't tug on Superman's cape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOcCoMFpM7g

9. Karate for defense only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDLuQdLN5G8

10. You can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
Early SNL sketch. I can't find a link.

"Duckhide!" and the birth of Waddlerianism

Back in 1985, a group of us from Atlanta went up to a campground in Wisconsin for a week.

We were in two vehicles: in a van were my friends Alan, Nild, Kim, George, and Mike. Maybe a couple of more I’ve forgotten. My friend Autumn and I were in another car, keeping in touch with the van via walkie-talkies purchased at Walmart.

We drove all night, and with each stop for gas, the van people were loopier and loopier. Somewhere around Gary, Indiana, the van people had come up with the Waddlin’ song. It was sung to the tune of the Rawhide theme, but it was about ducks.

By the time we got to Madison, Wisconsin, “Waddlerianism” was a full-blown religion. We even had our own schism once!

The Atlanta group ended up going our different ways, but we still sing the song on the occasions we get together.

Here it is, 2022, nearly 40 years later, and I had another look at the song. I fleshed it out a little. I can’t believe that in all these years nobody thought of “hell-bent for feathers.” Eh! We were young.

So here’s that song:

Waddlin’, waddlin’, waddlin’,
Keep them duckies waddlin’,
Keep them duckies waddlin’, Duckhide!

Through fowl wind and weather,
Hell-bent for feathers,
Waiting with a duckling by my side.

Waddlin’, waddlin’, waddlin’,
Duckies might be dawdlin’,
Keep them duckies waddlin’, Duckhide!

Don't try to understand ’em,
Just rope, throw and band ’em,
Soon they’ll be flying high and wide!

Waddlin’, waddlin’, waddlin’,
Keep them duckies waddlin’,
Keep them duckies waddlin’, Duckhide!

Blow'em 2022: Part 2

This weekend’s Blow’em will be in the form of limericks. Everyone knows what a limerick is, but let’s go over it anyway: 

A limerick is a form of verse … in five-line, predominantly anapestic trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth lines rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme. 

Extra points if the topic of the verse is science. 

Double extra points if your limerick is in a language other than English.

If you’re having trouble getting started, here are a few lines you can riff off of:

1) The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. (Twain)
2) How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. (Thoreau)
3) Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. (Sandburg)
4) Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. (Plato)

Aaaaand go!

___________

BK

I'll start.

A Uyghur with a load of blue rep
Trod the Silk Road with a surfeit of pep.
To while away hours
He planted hundreds of flowers
As a way to put Spring in his Steppe.

Diana
Aster, azalea, and chrysanthemum
Blooms of a plenty and of maximum
Joy he bestowed
On the gravel below
Don’t think about where the seeds had come from.

BK
This trader in silk and in wool
Knew what to do when push came to pull;
He surely weren't lazy
When pushing up Daisy
And had extra seed by the handful.

__________

Brian
There once stood a man from Corinth
Obsessed by an analogue synth
Just a filtered VCO,
Yet the hours would flow
As it droned on and on from its plinth.

Diana
I’m not really sure of what you speak
But I can tell you my interest you have piqued
I’d like to learn more
Unless it’s a bore
And only a topic that concerns geeks.

Brian
The brief bit that here I have shown
Has a language indeed all its own
Used for music it's true,
From engineering experiments it grew
Moog's among them likely of most renown.

_________

Diana
Our flower, our daughter, our dear Sister Sue
Artist and dreamer and lover of truth
She walks in the rain
And often complains
Her heart has been broken but she’s learned to make do.

BK
No way should our dear Sue surrender
To that heartbreaker, that vile pretender.
She should do what I do,
Eschew the boo-hoo
And go on a seven-day bender.

Diana
It’s tempting, the cure you recommend
But it’s better to have a drink with a friend
So if you’re inclined
To poison your mind
This blasted sobriety we can quickly end!

__________

BK
Laughter is medicine, they say,
That keeps melancholy at bay.
So, is it true or a rumor
That some vital humour
Should be injected three times a day?

Diana
Injecting humor into the day
Is a good way to keep the blues at bay
But to use a syringe
Just makes me cringe
I don’t think you're using it the correct way!

__________

Brian
I HAI THERE! U SEE THIZ LOLCAT
I AM IN UR POST IS A FACT
U THINK IS TRICK - IS MY LIMERICK
BUT THEN LIKE SNEK I ATTAC

Diana
Doge coin is soaring and Grumpy cat dead
The cat with the lady screaming off her fool head
I do love a meme
Even though it does seem
That I Can Haz Cheezburger has gone to your head.

__________

Terry
So this Schrodinger dude had a cat
As did Seuss, but his cat had a hat
Meanwhile I must see
What the vet bill will be
Before putting this… hey, why just a mat?

__________

BK
A doughboy hunkered down in a trench,
Was desperate his hunger to quench.
He tossed back a dram,
Ate a forkful of Spam
But cursed the poor Service, damned French.

A soldier 'tween Par-ee and Berlin
Gave a young partisan some flowers and gin.
To his wanton insistence
She showed no Resistance
And now they are living in Seine.

A soldier alone and afraid
Said, "To hell with this chicken brigade."
He was looking for fun
In the War with the Hun
"I just came to France to get laid."

__________

Joe
Schrödinger boxed up his cat
And had some mates ‘round to his flat
Heisenberg said,
“Alive and/or dead,
I’m really unsure about that”

BK
Schrödinger peeked in his box all agog,
Eager to record the results in his log.
Despite his suspicion
Of superposition,
What he found was a dead Pavlov's dog.

Joe
Pavlov kept ringing his bell
Trials were going quite well
Immersed in a pool
Of fresh canine drool
Data collection is hell

BK
Pavlov was just a beginner;
An apéritif before dinner.
Not just Schrödinger's box
Was prone to give shocks;
For that we also have Skinner.

_________

Joe
Young Thomas Dolby did find
A lass who was brilliant of mind
Who moved like the ocean
Like verse writ in motion
Alas, the result left him blind.

The lab coat said to the blazer,
“When learning to be an appraiser
As you and your buddies
Read all our studies
Remember to use Occam’s razor”

A frustrated pro climatologist
Berated a petrol apologist
“Your argument’s spurious
And I am so furious
You’ll need a damn good proctologist!”

__________

Diana
The cloud rides a wave of soft blowing breeze
Drifts gently over the tops of the trees
Then out comes the sun
To ruin its fun
Burning away a life made of ease.

__________

Terry
Johnny was a chemist
Johnny is no more
What he thought was H20
Was H2SO4.

Diana
The solution Johnny drank made his insides burn
Once it started working, to go back he did yearn
But now he’s gone
To the great beyond
And now it is a fact that Johnny will never learn

DAY TWO
We had a good run of science limericks last night thanks to Joe Ramsey. Let's change the topic. Extra points for literature-themed limericks.

BK
A man with a penchant for horror
Had a crow show up at his door.
He talked to the bird,
It said not a word.
The man was more morose than before.

Joe
Big black bird perched upon Pallas
Croaks a word gloomy and callous
Man says, “Lenore?
I’ll see nevermore?
Then what shall I do with my… [chalice] ?”

BK
A fellow was stuck on some isle
To survive by luck and by guile.
With his man Friday
And, too, God Almighty
He managed to be shipwrecked in style.

Gregor S. woke up a cockroach
Which earned him no end of reproach.
His visage grotesque,
Dare I say Kafkaesque,
But worse, now he has to fly coach.

Linda
There once was a cloud from Nantucket
That brooded then shed rains in buckets.
We All dash Inside
To keep OurSelves dry
Whatever it takes, we say f*#% it!

Terry
A difficult drunkard named Hemingway
Chortled not (“Keep it simple, he did say)
He fished, hunted, shot skeet
He of course ate red meat
And considered bullfighting a holiday.

Linda
There once was a cat from Newberry
his tuxedo/mask/blackandwhite/hairy
Sure he walks kinda funny
It just makes me feel sunny
And rested and calm and aware-y

BK
As the Dust Bowl did discommode
The family of parolee Tom Joad,
He said, "These grapes are all wrath
So you do the math
And let's get this show on the road."

Joe
The lonely wanderer Wordsworth
Knew just what a cloud or a bird’s worth
He got lots of thrills
From yon daffodils
But never could say what a turd’s worth.

Young Beowulf had some swagger
He was a great boaster and bragger
He said to his brother,
“You see Grendel’s mother?
I’ll bet you hands down I could shag 'er!”

Lady Macbeth had a plot
Alas, she got what she got
The family dog tried
To not go outside
Making her cry, “Out, damn’d Spot!!!”

BK
A gimpy old salt past his prime
Obsessed over a leviathan big time.
He called out to his crew
Because thar she blew,
And they all had a whale of a time.

DAY THREE
Literature is working, but let's expand the theme to include history, as well.

Joe
Attila the Hun threw his sandal
In fact he flew right off the handle.
“I’ll make a dread broth
From the bones of the Goths,
For my horse was spray-painted by Vandals!”

A Viking explorer named Leif
Crossed paths with a Newfoundland chief
Leif’s mouth was agape
At all the wild grapes
“I’ll call it Vinland in my brief”

Marie Antoinette laid in bed
As mobs down below chanted, “Bread!”
“Such noise they all make!
Why don’t they eat cake?
She muttered and soon lost her head.

An edict, in blistering terms
With plenty of Drangs und some Sturms
Directed at Luther
Grew quite uncouther
And said, “eat this Diet of Worms!”

BK
Not one to orate to excess,
Lincoln spoke modestly, but with finesse.
"And if you so choose
To make known your reviews,
Have them sent to my Gettysburg Address."

She'd have been a great unknown unless
She could make an element fluoresce.
Marie, ever Curie-ous,
Found her discovery injurious,
And retired to bask in the glow of success.

A captain and all-'round bad guy
Made rules crew could not abide by.
Retribution was swift,
Mutineers set him adrift,
And laughed as they waved him bye-Bligh.

If I can say this in words anapest ...
Lewis and Clark set off on a quest
To reach the far coast,
And raise a French toast:
Their Destiny clearly Manifest.

Blow'em 2022: Part 1

Well, it’s time for another Blow’em*. We haven’t done this in years!

Tonight’s Blow’em will be in Common Meter.

Common Meter consists of four lines which alternate between iambic tetrameter (four feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) and iambic trimeter (three feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), rhyming in the pattern a-b-a-b.

For example:

I turn to you, my Facebook friends
To join me at my game.
Combined, our talent knows no end.
Sometimes that is a shame.

So tell me what you’ve done today.
With whom did you converse?
Tell what you did at work or play
Both pleasant and perverse.

Still don’t get the hang of it? Sing it to the tune of “Amazing Grace” or “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island.” You’ll catch on.

*Blow’em: (n.) A Blog Poem of collective authorship conceived in 2009.

BK
Some friends of mine too young before
To know about MySpace
Might feel this is a frightful chore;
They’re not that far off base.

But come on in, the water’s fine!
Let’s see what words you’ve got;
This is the chance for you to shine …
Is your brain tied in a knot?

Linda
I'll drag a phrase across the page
Attempting to be sporting
I'm not too sharp on this fine eve
My mind is out cavorting

Magnolia
My Facebook page has been restricted
Because I was a naughty girl
The Facebook Judges had convicted
So let’s give this new page a little whirl

Today I was a couch potato
Practiced Spanish, played some games
Ate my weight in barbeque slow smoke
And can only move via crane.

Brian
My Saturday's been nondescript,
But boring? Never fear!
The week was plenty exciting
That morning I hit a deer.

BK
You saw a deer in all its splendor
And you put your car in gear;
Then that deer was on your fender
Because the buck stops here.

Or did you hope to miss the thing
And try your best to swerve?
You yielded to the rights of Spring …
I’ll bet that struck a nerve.

Brian
In fact, the beast had other friends,
As four did interrupt my drive
Haha! I thought! I'd dodged the lot!
Then up sprang number five.

Linda
The bacchanal is in full swing
Conscripting to the verve
And even at our widest fling
Connecting with the serve

BK
The bacchanale is all we’ve got,
Or so it sometimes seems.
But I don’t think it’s all for naught,
I’ll settle for extremes.

Alan
You’re way better at this sort of thing
Than Terry or than I
But better to pen a bit of rhyme
Than have ketchup in the eye

BK
I’m glad you’ve joined us at our play
Although it’s after dark;
And as you know keeping ants at bay
Is definitely aardvark.

Terry
Our card game hadn’t gone down well
When I reached to move my rook,
O puddledegook and what fell hell
This line goes snippitysnook

But many a many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea
A girl there lived who you now know
And back then that girl was me

BK
That Carroll, he spoke Jabberwack,
Face twisted with a sneer;
Withal he came galumphing back
But did so with a Lear.

BK
I must be shuffling off to bed
Because my mind is toast.
But y’all keep going in my stead;
It’s up to you, West Coast!

BK
We have another day to go
To see our wit laid bare;
And be it though pretend or faux,
It’s none of my affair.

Magnolia
Another Sunday full of chores
but it can go to heck
I'd rather lounge forevermore
And watch episodes of Star Trek

BK
To sit right back and watch some Trek,
That is a noble goal;
And though it’s cheesy and low-tech
It soothes my tortured soul.

Linda 2
Twas chilly on this Sunday morn 
which thrilled me to the core 
tho spring has sprung, the sun reborn 
I dread what is in store 

Not long till temps are in the red 
Drenched in humidity 
“You'll acclimate” they always said 
As I sweat in misery 

So now I type onto a screen 
my offering of Blow-em 
So now on Facebook to be seen 
my silly little poem

Terry
This meter, as its name implies,
Is commoner than bread.
Internal rhymes are used at times,
And some rhymes are stilt-ED. (Ted? Where's Ted?)