Dear Tracy,
I’m sorry that you high-handed me at the shopping mall while you were walking with all of your friends last Saturday. I want you to know that I’m a much more mature person than you are and that I have added you to my nightly prayers.
Not sure why but sometimes these (very technical poems) can be very easy to write.
Sorry if this has a ton of mistakes… the guy that I used to run these by is still very deceased and irreplaceable.
My daughter said that one of her friends at school was upset – telling her that he’d just been kicked out of his band.
I told her to tell him to form a NEW band called “FU to my old band” and then write a song called “I hope you all die in a bus accident!”
Fortunately she didn’t listen beyond telling him to form a new band!
This is a really short story that was embedded in a chat message to a friend.
And YES – I know there are errors… it was written more or less in one continuous string of words…
I was just in the middle of a comment battle with someone who doesn’t believe some of the things that I said about my father (in conjunction with a video about racism in the military…)
On the one hand – it is kind of infuriating to have someone flat-out accuse me of lying about my dad… especially when I didn’t.
On the other hand – I can see why a person wouldn’t believe some of my little quips about my dad; he was a really strange guy and did things that don’t always sit comfortably in day-to-day life. That’s not to say that he walked around with a tin-foil hat or made the sign of the Cross when speaking (he only did that while driving past churches…)
Dad was strange because he was so very, very normal. He didn’t have much of an education, only four years of formal schooling. He was apprenticed to a woodworking shop when he was seven and THAT was the foundation of his real education. After he immigrated to the United States in the 1950’s he started working right away (as in he arrived in New York on a Monday, drove up to Boston on Tuesday and had his first job making caskets on Wednesday).
The workshops that he worked in had lots of other people from lots of other parts of the world. Consequently, his English never got that polished, but he was suddenly able to speak Spanish and Portuguese on top of his native Italian. (I have to admit that it was really weird to watch dad talk to folks in his other languages… it was like watching a movie where the movements don’t track with the sound!)
Back to the point!
My initial point was that my dad would sometimes say weird things that seemed completely improbable … but as he was a person who didn’t tell lies (he did like to play tricks – those aren’t exactly lies but if we’re splitting hairs I guess it represents a certain verifiable level of mendacity.)
One night we were in the kitchen eating dinner dad pointed to the TV and said “I know that man!”
“Dad … you know Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn???” Thinking that it was about as probable as it was for him to have that night’s winning lottery numbers.
”I made some furniture for his office when he lived in Vermont.”
I always get a kick out of that story. It shows perfectly how bad it is to serially UNDERstate the things you do in front of people while at the exact time showing how wrong it is to automatically disbelieve things that fall 5 or more degrees off-center. I should have known it was true – dad wasn’t a liar. I also should have know it was true based on some of the other prestigious woodworking ‘gigs’ he went on in his career.
Standing in line to wait for my son at school; this came to me!
… the time-stamp is really freaking me out.
I’m not going to edit this at all so that the number can stay true.
It should be “gentle” not gentile!!! Oy!!!!
…and “bittered” not Blittered!!!
Hint – if you’re not sure it’s a spoonerism!
There once was a man in Hong Kong
Who lived his whole life like a song
When his chorus was finished
His voicing diminished
….Danicoke usually wrote the last lines
For the past few weeks “Danicoke” has been leaving short poems in the guestbooks of the local “Queequeg’s Coffee” branches …
It isn’t getting better
I still feel the same
It hasn’t made things easier
Without someone to blame.
This week I found out that my very best, closest and oldest friend died. We’ve known each other since we were kids… 7 or 8 years old!
They say that when you share a close bond with a person you can finish each other’s sentences – we not only would finish each other’s sentences but we’d sit down with a notebook: I’d write a few lines, he’d write a few lines and pass it back… I’d write the next few lines and then pass it to him and he’d write a few lines… and like that we’d compose some crazy, crazy stuff.
One thing that I’ve been doing over the past few days is to re-read some of the thousands and thousands of chat messages between us. I was able to screen-shot about 400 limericks and poems and short stories. Coupled with the scans of our handwritten work I’m compiling a collection for his son. I want it to stand as a document of how a smart, playful and daring mind can work to express itself. As a parent I’m also keenly aware that sometimes you have to wear the ‘disciplinarian hat’ and it’s easy for children to be of the impression that their parents are “NO FUN!”
We were fun! We used to be fun. We used to be.
Now I have to confront the near constant urge to chat or text a message with a bizarre quip or a photo of some improbable agglomeration of unthinkable things … but having no one to send it to.
This week I found out that my very best, closest and oldest friend died. We’ve known each other since we were kids… 7 or 8 years old!
They say that when you share a close bond with a person you can finish each other’s sentences – we not only would finish each other’s sentences but we’d sit down with a notebook: I’d write a few lines, he’d write a few lines and pass it back… I’d write the next few lines and then pass it to him and he’d write a few lines… and like that we’d compose some crazy, crazy stuff.
One thing that I’ve been doing over the past few days is to re-read some of the thousands and thousands of chat messages between us. I was able to screen-shot about 400 limericks and poems and short stories. Coupled with the scans of our handwritten work I’m compiling a collection for his son. I want it to stand as a document of how a smart, playful and daring mind can work to express itself. As a parent I’m also keenly aware that sometimes you have to wear the ‘disciplinarian hat’ and it’s easy for children to be of the impression that their parents are “NO FUN!”
We were fun! We used to be fun. We used to be.
Now I have to confront the near constant urge to chat or text a message with a bizarre quip or a photo of some improbable agglomeration of unthinkable things … but having no one to send it to.
To The Spanner Born 