I'd Like a Second Opinion

I consulted Dr. Seuss on a matter of great importance.
He made a Hat-in-Cat Scan of my Whys and Whos and Hortons.

He said, “You have a cooter-pooter,” and he asked for my permission.
“You're going to feel a little prick, but you’ll be in remission.”

I should say I did not like it. I do not care how it appears!
It’s not covered by my insurance, and now I’m in arrears.

I'm Just Scratching the Surface (because that's where it itches)

I am uniquely superficial in the way I act and speak,
And my emotions artificial for six days out of the week.
Oh, I say odd stuff and nonsense just to hear the way I sound,
Without affect or pretense, how the wisecracks they abound.
They flee my tongue like flocks of birds, all migrating south.
Meaningless, my witty words! I just cannot shut my mouth.
That “me” who felt, he up and died. I'm unmoved by grief or woe!
I’m laughing on the outside, and that’s as deep as I will go.
But please don’t think ill of me; I’ve got catharsis by the throat!
Every seventh day I set it free … I pull the shades, and I emote.

A Tail of Chew Kitties

My little cat bit his tail
And then he kept on chewing.
He went at it tooth and nail.
He didn’t know what he was doing.

He chewed upon his tail all day,
Chewed well into the night.
I didn’t know just what to say.
I knew it wasn’t right.

He gnawed and gnawed,
Oh, how he bit and swallowed.
He was eating himself, by Gawd!
First tail, then hind legs followed.

He kept on eating without pause,
Past his shoulders, as I feared.
One last gulp – just because –
Then my cat, he disappeared!

I couldn’t believe my cat was gone –
I would miss the little dear.
He’d tangled with that tail – and won.
I’ll admit … I shed a tear.

So, imagine my surprise when,
Two days later, to the second,
I heard my cat meow again!
He’d digested himself, I reckon.

It’s true! The cat was back!
My ravenous little friend ...
He’d eaten himself for a snack,
Then come out his other end!

Now I buy no cat food,
My cat’s a meal that never ends.
Now when he’s in a peckish mood,
I butter up his tail and send him through again!

Christmas Card 2009

Marginalia

Going back over my notebooks, I find the oddest things scrawled in the margins. Relics of some passing fancy, quickly written and as quickly forgotten. Then, when I come across them sometimes years later, I often wonder, "What was I thinking?"

Here are a few things I have found in those notebooks.

______

William was a good boy, as good as he could be
And William had a little sheep, so fine and soft and wee.
But William was a big boy, bigger than Uncle Fred.
Yes, William was a big boy … and now that sheep is dead.

…

(Sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.”)

Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles,
Goose step all o’er the pla-ace.
We can do whatever we want,
We are the Master Ra-ace.

Germans, Germans, ve are good,
Germans, ve are grea-eat.
Ve dominate the ones we love
And kill the ones we ha-ate!

...

Herpes burn day to you,
Herpes burn day to you.
Herpes burn day, herpes burn day,
Herpes burn day to you!

…

Aardvark, aardvark come out and play,
Suck up dem ants on a bright sunny day.
You’ve eaten dem ants ever since you was young.
Put yo face on de ground and dey stick on yo tongue.
Sho nuff.

…

Fire can heal, fire can burn us,
Fire will thrive on wood or coal.
Never reach inside a furnace,
Always poke it with a pole.

…

All around the carpenter’s bench
The Muslim chased the Jesus.
The Muslim thought ’twas all in fun,
Pop! Goes the Jesus …

…

Hunter’s arrow squarely sings
Toward the children on the swings.
Fred and Ethel are reviled
Lucy likes her cabbage biled.
Spicy jalapeño poppers,
Kmart saying “Hello shoppers,”
Perry Como, Dean and Bing,
This little song don’t mean a thing.

...

Long the shadows on Autumn’s eve
The sun sets … I rejoice.
“God,” I think, “I believe.”
I give the thought a voice.
Brown the leaves that tend to fall
Among the bowers bare,
As God above marks my call
And then ignores my prayer.

...

Lorem gypsum color cement, consecrate teeter adipose lint.
Damn no hominy, deuce ode temper, indecent labor, Dolores whimper.

...

England mourns her poet lost,
The late and good Lord Tennyson.
No finer dear has tempest tossed,
But that - my deer - is venison.

...

The rose is red, the violet is blue
I went to the dance and so did you.
At the wedding I tried to explain to your maw,
I don't really love you ... I drew the short straw.

...

Warm cat vomit
On a winter's night
Is cold come morning.



...

I've never seen a pig in a poke.
I never hope to see one.
At least I know, when times are tough,
I'd rather Weee! than be one.

...

I’ve never seen a sacred cow,

I never hope to see one.

But from what’s on the news right now,

I know that there must be one.

...

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I’ve never winced nor cursed my load.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

...


I went to Japan, I sat in a fancy tub.
You won’t believe-a what I saw-a!
I got a "thorough" body rub,
And I brought home an Ichikawa.

...

Violets are blue,
Roses are red.
I’m stalking you ...
I’m under your bed.
...

Prostate! Prostate! He’s our gland!

If you can’t reach it, no one can!

Raw Raw Raw!

A Manor of Speaking Preface

 

I’d write an Almanack if I could. That’s always  been a good forum for pithy sayings. God knows I’m full of pith. I can barely hold it in.

(I’d leave all that weather and crop stuff out of my Almanack, though. You want the weather? Here’s the weather: It’s hot in Summer, cold in Winter, and … eh! … the other parts of the year are somewhere in between. You want planting advice? Plant stuff when it’s warm, pick stuff when it gets ripe. Rotate your crops. How hard is that? It’s the Agronomy, stupid!)

Alas, I’m not cut out to write an Almanack. I’m no Ben freaking Franklin! My meager kite wouldn’t be struck by lightning if I held a fish in my mouth and blew a whistle. Or whatever else might tickle St. Elmo. I’d make a Poor Richard, indeed.

I’ve considered other media as a means of expressing my thoughts, observations and abject cynicism. I could draft a dictionary like Dr. Johnson; I could proffer proverbs for fortune cookies, like Confucius; I could wrangle witticisms for bubble gum, like Bazooka Joe. If I were a legendary copy editor like … well … um … there are no legendary copy editors. But, if I were one, I could really make a newspaper headline sing!

Sure, I could poo on the path of the greatest aphorists in history, feebly following the scent of what others have done before, piddling puns and sniffing the butts of my betters. But I’ll never make my own mark no matter how doggedly I try.

Then, along came the Facebook status.  Guess what I stepped in?

The Facebook status was ideal for the expression  of epigrams, aphorisms and adages. It was an underutilized medium, one which, in the proper cheeky, impudent hands, could easily be elevated to an art form.     Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, most people on Facebook couldn’t grab their sass with both hands. But — boyoboyoboy! — this was my chance to shine!

So, I put my laconic wit to work and assembled a superfluity of statuses; a conglomeration of quotidian quotables. I present here epigrams, bon mots, frivolous and meaningless wordplay that  might make you titter a bit or maybe say, “Well … that guy’s weird.”

At the end of the day, I may be no Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, but if I gave you a gainly grin, my bass humor was worth all the treble.

An O-Pun letter to an Old Girlfriend

I just got an e-mail from an old girlfriend. She forwarded me an article from the New York Times about puns, the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit.”

It states in part:

“Puns are the feeblest species of humor because they are ephemeral: whatever comic force they possess never outlasts the split second it takes to resolve the semantic confusion. Most resemble mathematical formulas: clever, perhaps, but hardly occasion for knee-slapping. The worst smack of tawdriness, even indecency, which is why puns, like off-color jokes, are often followed by apologies. Odds are that a restaurant with a punning name — Snacks Fifth Avenue, General Custard’s Last Stand — hasn’t acquired its first Michelin star.”

I couldn’t resist framing a polite response, and the following exchange ensued.

******

That is so weird! I actually wrote in an e-mail just last night:

“The chick I was engaged to was from Upstate N.Y., and hated everything Southern. Our vegetables are too ‘squishy,’ everything is ‘too sweet.’ And, if she didn’t like it, she didn’t want me to have it, either. Same with wordplay. She doesn’t like it, so, by golly, she did her best to squash it out of me.”

Hee hee! I enjoy a good pun. I even got paid very well to come up with them. Sure, they’re not the crème de la crème of the literary world, but sometimes a Cool Quip will do just as well.

Perhaps their ephemeral nature is also part of their appeal. Let’s not make of them something they aren’t. They’re not meant to be cathedrals of great literature to be admired for their beauty through all the ages. They are sandcastles … a moment’s diversion for the tide to reclaim. They are not The Thinker, they are balloon animals. They’re not Karl Marx, but Groucho.

But, each to his own tastes, each according to his ability. God knows there are plenty of kinds of humor I don’t like. Maybe there is something else you can find to bring you as much delight.

“… my main problem with puns is … we know you are not really listening to us as friends or conversationalists, you are merely lying in wait for our words as fodder.”

I remember your saying once that certain word choices make you feel that we are not listening to you. I can appreciate that, but I disagree. In certain circumstances, it can even indicate that we are paying more attention to you. If a pun is in the right context, it can show that, not only am I listening to you, but to your words and their nuances. If I say something perfectly in context, it shouldn’t slow the conversation down at all.

Take your sentence, “... you are merely lying in wait for our words as fodder.”

Now, if I were simply to respond, “Fodder knows best,” I agree that could interrupt the flow of a conversation. But if I were to assure you that, “I certainly don’t regard everything you mutter as fodder,” I am clearly paying attention to what you said, its meaning and context. I am merely adding a subtext which you can acknowledge or dismiss as you see fit, and discourse continues uninterrupted.

How about if we remove the other person from the equation? Do you make a distinction between the spoken pun and the written? If there is no conversation to disturb, does it make a difference? If, for example, I write, “I’m eating a healthy diet of fresh fruit because I love pears in the Spring time,” or remark in April that I’m “deep in the heart of taxes,” I’m not lying in wait for your words at all.

And what of Gary Larson or Sherman and Peabody on “Rocky and Bullwinkle”? You used to like Gary Larson.

Aside from conversation or writing, many of us simply like to play. I think it is as valid a device as alliteration, rhyme or meter. Or assonance or consonance. It imposes a certain structure and shapes your choice of words accordingly.

But, I fully agree that there are times where such wordplay is inappropriate. God knows I am always biting my tongue at corporate functions. In my day, I have been both praised for my professionalism and recognized for my unorthodox facility with words.

Thanks for the dialog. This is fun! But, I wonder … is it just the pun, or is that just a catch-all? What is your stance on other types of wordplay?

******

And that was the last I heard from her on the subject. To think I almost married her!