Peppy Doggerel
I woke up this morning with a quatrain running through my head.
I think I made it up myself, but I've been wrong about that before.
I opened my eyes after a dream that was as vivid as it was quickly forgotten. But there I was, left with a four-line bit of doggerel:
I'm so very tired of 'tit for tat'
I no longer have time or wit for that
It always ends up as shit for shat
So here's to the end of 'tit for tat.'
OK, so Ogden Nash it ain't.
Or maybe it is. I don't know. I don't recall ever hearing it before. But like I've said, I've been wrong before. But then I was in the hospital, wacked out on demerol, back in 1979. I thought I had written a song that went like this:
I go to parties, sometime intil four.
It's hard to leave when you can't find the door.
It's hard to handle this fortune and fame--
Everybody's so different, I haven't changed.
The wonderful thing about demerol is that it doesn't matter that I was 18 years old, usually in bed by midnight, with neither fortune, nor fame--I still wrote the song, dammit!
When I came to, my roommate explained that I was not Joe Walsh, and I didn't have a Maserati that did one-eighty-five.
Behold the power of demerol!
A few days later, when Steve Allen came by to visit with his wife Jayne Meadows, I chalked it up to another drug-induced hallucination.
Guess what. It wasn't. They were in town doing a Neil Simon play, and had stopped by to visit to cheer my spirits. I hope I didn't embarass myself.
Yeharr
I think I made it up myself, but I've been wrong about that before.
I opened my eyes after a dream that was as vivid as it was quickly forgotten. But there I was, left with a four-line bit of doggerel:
I'm so very tired of 'tit for tat'
I no longer have time or wit for that
It always ends up as shit for shat
So here's to the end of 'tit for tat.'
OK, so Ogden Nash it ain't.
Or maybe it is. I don't know. I don't recall ever hearing it before. But like I've said, I've been wrong before. But then I was in the hospital, wacked out on demerol, back in 1979. I thought I had written a song that went like this:
I go to parties, sometime intil four.
It's hard to leave when you can't find the door.
It's hard to handle this fortune and fame--
Everybody's so different, I haven't changed.
The wonderful thing about demerol is that it doesn't matter that I was 18 years old, usually in bed by midnight, with neither fortune, nor fame--I still wrote the song, dammit!
When I came to, my roommate explained that I was not Joe Walsh, and I didn't have a Maserati that did one-eighty-five.
Behold the power of demerol!
A few days later, when Steve Allen came by to visit with his wife Jayne Meadows, I chalked it up to another drug-induced hallucination.
Guess what. It wasn't. They were in town doing a Neil Simon play, and had stopped by to visit to cheer my spirits. I hope I didn't embarass myself.
Yeharr
posted by Balloon Pirate at 1:46 PM
4 Comments:
While I agree that the quatrain won't play in the big leagues, the first line of your post would be a great opener for a blues song.
Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. That must be a keeper on your list of all-time odd life experiences. There's no way anyone could make up something like that. No drug could induce it . . . although an interesting experience at the time, I would imagine . . .
That sort of crap happens to me all the time, Guy.
I'm more interested in the forces that caused that poem to form in my brain. I've been spending some time meditating on the need to retaliate, and how to overcome it, and my subconscious makes four silly stanzas out of it? What do I make out of that?
Yeharr
The brain is an incredible instrument. In my sleep I've written songs, designed clothes and shoes, and thought of great business ideas involving cakes. If only I was that creative in my waking life.
Great, Ro. You get music and business plans. I get 'shit for shat.'
And upon further review, Guy...I think you might be right about the first line.
Perhaps I'll work on it.
Yeharr
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