Munsters: A Horrible Little Comedy

A little unusual for me to post on this blog a smattering of a play but here’s the beginning of a musical comedy. The characters will be all the creatures from those old movies you know and love. So here goes.

Narrator: These stories always begin the same way. It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it was. Lightning flashed, revealing a castle standing on a mountain in the darkness. Deep in the recesses of the castle is a large, wooden door. Sparks can be seen coming from behind the door. Then a voice:

Dr. Frankenstein: I’ve done it, I’ve really done it this time.

Narrator: The door opens. A white-haired man in a white laboratory coat leans over a large male body. The body is connected to electrical wires. Sparks slowly dying are coming from the body. He seems to be asleep. Then he begins to stir.

Dr. Frankenstein sings lovingly to the body the song, “Got a Blind Date and Ain’t Got Nothing to Wear Blues”:

I’ll be your Hannibal Lector, you’ll be my fava beans.

When you come to dinner, there’ll be lots of screams.

First I’ll cook up the liver, so tender and nice;

Then a kidney pie, I’ll cut you out a slice. 

Fee fee fie fie fo fo fum

I smell the blood of everyone.

I’ll be your Jack the Ripper, you’ll be my London girl.

You’re, oh, such a cut-up, the best in all the world.

From London to Paris and all points beyond;

Such a crazy pair, we’re having globs of fun.

Fee fee fie fie fo fo fum

I wanna taste the blood of everyone

You’ll be my Dr. Jekyll, I’ll be your Mr. Hyde.

Walking hand in hand, we’ll walk side by side.

The thrill of it all, just the two of you and me.

Just call me Mr. Multiple Personality.

Fee fee fie fie fo fo fum

I’m gonna suck the blood from everyone.

I just got bit by rabies, rabies in my drawers,

As I walked my bloodhound way out on the moors.

If I were Bing Crosby, I’d surely wanna croon;

Me, I’m really hungry, so I’ll howl at the moon.

Fee fee fie fie fo fo fum

There’s no blood in anyone

And we’re having oodles and oodles of fun.

Narrator: The large body rises and jerks the electric wires from his body. He is monstrous-looking but charming in a lost kind of way. He looks at the doctor, then he looks at a large pinup of a woman in a bathing suit nailed to the wall. He walks slowly over to the pinup and sings “Virgin Blues”:

When I was in school

We said it was cool

To be a virgin

We laughed at those

Who were not supposed

To be virgins

Sweet sweet virginity

Like some disease

Got stuck to me

When I got out

I roamed about

Still a virgin

Now in my older days

I’d like to dump the ways

Of being virgin

Sweet sweet virginity

Like some disease

Got stuck to me

Narrator: In the kitchen upstairs a small man, Igor, finishes preparing dinner for the doctor and his patient. He loads it all on a tray and takes the food downstairs, singing:

I likes them flies

when they dives

them flies

them flies

I likes them dried

peppered and spiced

and toads

big and growed

make the grade

for my lemonade

When all is said and done

lunch will be fun

and I can’t wait

for supper to animate

I catch me roaches

as they approaches

me roaches

me roaches

I likes them fried

strung up and dried

and snakes

is all it takes

to make a stew

good and grue—

some.

Narrator: Igor opens the door to the laboratory.

Igor: Room service.

Narrator: He takes lunch over to a table and uncovers it. As he does, he smells something odd. An odor. He looks over at the large fellow in love with the pin-up. He walks over and pulls the monster’s coattails.

Igor: Fellow, you are not going to get a girl, smelling like that.

Igor sings “Feed your feet”:

You can dress ‘em up just like Christmas      

In flip-flops or sandal ware                            

Loafers, brogans or cowboy boots                 

I really couldn’t care                                      

But I want you to understand                                   

What’s been since time began                        

That nothing can make a bod compleat         

If that body don’t feed his feet                     

Feed your feet, feed your feet               

For if you don’t, they’re sure gonna stink     

So feed those dogs or I can tell you well      

If you don’t, they’re gonna smell                  

Many’s the time I heard the shout

“What’s that odor? Get it out!”

Neither Mom nor wife would allow

That kinda small anyhow

Now I want you to understand

What’s been since time began

That nothing can make a bod compleat

If that body don’t feed his feet

Feed your feet, feed your feet           

For if you don’t, they’re sure gonna stink     

So feed those dogs or I can tell you well      

If you don’t, they’re gonna smell

Narrator: Igor leads the monster over to the bed, sits him down, pulls off his shoes and sprays his feet with Ye Olde Foot Spray.

Narrator: Meanwhile in the village below the mountain, a criminal is prowling the streets.

Narrator sings:

Oh, what do you know about Jack?
He had a mighty good knack
So let me give you the facts
He was needing
He was pleading
“Just give me a midnight snack.”

Oh, she made her way about town
Just a girl making her rounds
A bride in search of a gown
“I shall not tarry
Soon I’ll marry
A lord I think is a clown.”

Oh, why would she marry this guy?
He couldn’t even zip up his fly
No matter how hard he did try
He’d heave the ho
Give it a go
But the zipper had gone and died.

Said she was out for the money
Just a girl who’d never had any
And the lord had more than plenty
“Marry for love
You’ll grovel for grub”
That’s why her name was Penny

Well, she was out roaming the streets
Shopping for all kinds of treats
When it was the Ripper she meets
Her bodice did fall
Her bosoms enthralled
That night Jack fell off his feet

Soon Jack the Ripper was gone
He gave up ripping alone
These two are ripping real strong
Fast as they go
They doe-si-doe
Now they’ve got two ripplets at home.

The play does not end here. There’s more but where it is, it’s anybody’s guess.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn; They Shall Be Comforted

Gaby got home around six. Opened her box and took out the mail. Climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment, dog-tired from a day standing before her sixth-grade classes, trying to teach them a piece of music they did not want to learn. Everything her students wanted to learn was out on the streets and not in her classroom.

Rifling through her mail, she found the special letter she had expected for the last few weeks. The one from Carl. She dropped her other mail on the table without looking at it. She lifted Carl’s envelope to her nostrils and smelled it. It had his scent.

She decided she would save it for a treat later. Besides she knew what it contained. A ticket to join him in L. A. She laid it lovingly on the coffee table. Then made herself a cup of tea and concentrated on the work ahead. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to crank it out.

Taking her tea and scone over to the computer, she booted it up. It was Friday night and time for her to respond to the email from her editor. His email contained three letters asking relationship advice. Her editor expected a response from “Aunty Jabberwocky” by Saturday afternoon.

The letters often were several paragraphs long. For each, she gave the editor a required two hundred and fifty to three hundred word response. Most of the time she wanted to respond with “Get a life”. But she didn’t. Her editor wouldn’t like it. He wanted a positive outlook from her. Something to soothe bruised egos and help them on their way.

She opened the email and read through the letters quickly. Though they were each different, they were in many ways the same.

“I’ve been married ten years. Now my husband is cheating on me.” Gaby’s response, in a diplomatic way: “Shoot the son of a bitch.” Advice she would never have followed since she was afraid of guns.

Or “I am seventeen years old and I am so lonely. My boyfriend left me because I wouldn’t have sex with him.” Gaby’s response, in a diplomatic way: “Ask the b/f why God gave him two hands.” Advice she never followed. She had lost her virginity at fifteen, giving it to a seventeen-year-old who wouldn’t even ask her out on a date.

Or “My mother is dating a new man. She wants to know if she should accept his proposal for marriage.” Gaby’s response, in a diplomatic way: “Tell her to accept. It will be a great way to get Mom off your hands.” This too was advice Gaby would never have followed if she had known who her biological mother was.

Sometimes she wondered how she, of all people, ended up doing relationship advice. She was no damned good at relationships. All of hers fell apart.

Four years earlier, she had been looking for a way to bring in some extra money for a cruise she wanted to take. So she answered an online ad for a local newspaper. “Need advice columnist. No experience necessary but the applicant must be able to write.”

Steve, her editor, liked her honesty and hired her on the spot. He figured anyone who had done as poorly as she had in the relationship department would have some ideas on what might work for other people. He slid a couple of relationship books across the desk and ordered her to go read them, then said he would email her the first three letters the following Friday. The answers were expected by Saturday afternoon for the Sunday edition of the newspaper.

In the beginning, she went to work at the job with a gusto that surprised even her. And the relationship advice she sent out was some she got up the courage to take herself. Each new guy she dated became Mr. Possibility. That is, until he became Mr. Dud. Over the four years, she had taken on four relationships, each one looking better than the previous. The first three ended with a thud. Then finally, at forty, she met the One.

Carl had everything she was looking for in a man. He was tender. His jokes made her laugh. He was a great Mr. Fixit. There was never any putdown from him the way the others did. He seemed to be able to read her mind when he would come out with the most outlandish suggestions. If she had believed in soulmates, Carl would have been hers.

He was twenty-five. But it wasn’t a problem for him. He told her that older women always attracted him. The younger ones, the ones his age, fell flat. And he felt like he and Gaby were perfect for each other.

When they first met at a dinner party, Carl had done several small roles in avant garde plays. For the year they were together, his skill as an actor and his roles grew. A month earlier, he had gotten a role in the pilot for a new series. It was to be shot in L. A. If it panned out, he told her that he would send for her. No use for her to give up her job if the pilot was not picked up.

So here she sat at her computer, writing relationship advice, and not sure where she stood. At least, until tonight and the letter. The letter on the table.

She finished her email, then hit send and off it went to Steve for the Sunday edition. It was back to the kitchen nook for another cup of tea.

While she waited on the water to boil, she picked up the envelope with his letter and her ticket to paradise and smelled it once again. His faint odor, the odor of the earth, wind, water and sun. Just one whiff of him was enough to drive her into ecstasy. The kettle whistled. Like a train whistle, she felt the lonely would soon be long gone.

She pulled out a bag of mint tea, her favorite, and dropped it into the cup. Over the bag she poured the hot water. She waited for the bag to steep in the water. Her waiting seemed like an eternity. The cup of tea was ready. She walked it over to the coffee table, set the tea down and settled on the sofa.

Her trembling hand picked up the envelope. She sliced it open with her letter opener. Afraid to touch its contents, she shook them onto the table.

Five one-hundred-dollar bills fell out.

She shook the envelope again and nothing more. She ripped into the envelope. It was empty. No letter. No note. Nothing. The envelope had contained only the five hundred dollars Gaby had lent Carl to go off to California for his pilot.

Her body slumped deep into the sofa. She did not feel pain. She did not feel her heart break. She did not feel the loneliness.

Where once there were dreams, there was now only emptiness. Where once there was hope, there was now only a void. Where once there was a woman, there was only an old haggard body, ready for the Angel of Death to carry her off not to Paradise and not to Hell. To limbo, that gray netherworld where lost souls go to live out their forevers.

Across the room and on a bookcase, she spotted a black case. She tried to pull herself together but she could not. Her body sunk deeper into the cushion. She pushed herself off the sofa and onto the floor. If she could reach the case, everything might be better. Her hands pulled her dead body closer and closer to the bookcase. Finally she reached it. She raised her arm, her hand barely touching the case. She strained and managed to make the case fall onto the floor, almost hitting her in the head. She pulled her body up against the wall and unsnapped the black case.

In the case was a trumpet. She lifted it out of the case. She took the Yamaha 14B4 mouthpiece, spat into it, then rubbed it dry on her dress. She inserted it into the trumpet.

She managed to get herself into a standing position. The trumpet somehow gave her the energy to make her way to the window. The world of the city stood before her, and a lightly lit street below. A drunk stumbled out of a bar and into a dark alley.

Gaby lifted the trumpet to her lips. At first, nothing came out of the brass instrument. Then a little peep. Pretty soon she had that trumpet making a sound, and then more sound.

The sound she played filled her body, each breath giving the trumpet more sound. Soon it went to that deep secret part of herself that she had shared with no one, not even Carl. She became the sound and the sound became her, a requiem rising toward the heavens, mourning for what had been, a grief for what never was.

She breathed into that trumpet the way God must have breathed into the first man. The music became a living thing. She was in the deep water of the sound she played, heading further and further out to sea.

Her neighbors, who were prone to complain about any noise, did not complain. For some, the music sounded as if it was announcing the Second Coming. For others, it reminded them of all the loses they had ever had. For still others, it was the most beautiful noise. The music reached down into each of their souls and made them feel as if they had never felt before.

The music ascended like incense rising into the heavens, and the angels wept. It was that kind of noise.

Happy 54th Anniversary

“All summer long we were dancing in the sand Everybody just kept on playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.” –from “Summer Rain” written by James Hendrix, recorded by Johnny Rivers.

It was May 26, 1967. If there was going to be a summer blockbuster that summer, it wasn’t going to be a movie. It was going to be an album. Many of us baby boomers were like Millennials, waiting for the release of the latest “Harry Potter”. Instead of standing in line at the bookstores, we waited by our radios. Come midnight, American stations were going to play the new Beatles release.

It had been almost a year since their last album, “Revolver”. We weren’t sure what we would get but we were hungry for some new music from the boys from Liverpool. They had come a long way since their audition with George Martin on June 6, 1962. With seven albums under their belt, we weren’t sure what they would give us. But we were rooting for them. Our ears were about to enter the cinematic wonder of Pepperland.

Earlier in the year, there had been the musical equivalent of movie trailers for the album. In February, they released the forty-five singles, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane”.

Finally, everything went quiet on the radio. Then there was the sound of an audience shuffling in its seats. An orchestra tuned up with the fastest orchestra tuning in history. With a barely heard “Roll Over”, Paul struck up the band. Guitars, a strong drum beat, then Paul’s voice announced “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Then he introduced the “one and only Billy Shears”. The Beatles were giving the listener the illusion they were at a live concert.

Like a big band singer from the swing era, the debonair Billy Shears (Ringo) stepped to the mic. He sang one of the Beatles’ best-known anthems, “With a Little Help From My Friends”. Next came John’s surrealistic “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”. A drawing by his three-year-old son inspired its lush images (Margotin, location 5441).

In the past, the Beatles occasionally created fictional characters. These included songs like “Eleanor Rigby”, “Paperback Writer”, and “Taxman”. But these characters and their stories littered “Sgt. Pepper”. In addition to Billy Shears, Lucy and Sgt. Pepper, there was Mr. Kite, the Hendersons, Henry the Horse, Pablo Fanque and Lovely Rita. There was the girl and her parents in the poignant “She’s Leaving Home”. The character in “Good Morning Good Morning” took his marching orders from the rat race. Unlike any album we’d heard before, there was a cinematic effect to the songs. Each song had the feel of a mini-film.

The songs introduced and broadened themes normally not found in popular music. This was due to their encounter with Bob Dylan and his songs. Paul shared his optimism in “Getting Better” and “Fixing a Hole”. John and the band created a circusy number in “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”. With “When I’m Sixty-Four”, Paul questioned the lasting nature of relationships. There’s the poignant “She’s Leaving Home”. In “Within You Without You”, George gave us a summary of the Indian spiritual philosophy he embraced. The music reflected the influence from a multitude of musical styles. Then at the end there was the pièce de résistance. The symphonic “A Day in Life” might be thought of as the Beatles “Ode to Joy”.

When we finished that first listen, we realized John was right. On “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, he promised, “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.” That June night in 1967 left many of us speechless. It was like Christmas, Halloween and the Superbowl all rolled into one.

When we purchased the album the next day, imagine our surprise. Not only were there great songs, there was the cover. There with the Beatles were the images of eighty-five personalities on it. Future generations would play “Where’s Waldo”. That summer we played “Who’s That”. Radio stations gave out prizes for those guessing the famous, and some not so famous, people.

For five months in 1967, Producer George Martin, Sound Engineer Geoff Emerick and four working class guys changed musical history. They showed musicians how to play the recording studio like a musical instrument.

With the album, rock ‘n’ roll entered the Space Age. The Beatles had burst loose from the earth bound “She loves you”. Now they entered the heavens with the Saturn rocket that was “Sgt. Pepper”. They created what “Rolling Stone Magazine” considers the number one album of all-time.

With a trilogy of records, “Rubber Soul”, “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper”, the Beatles made albums matter. After “Sgt. Pepper”, singles were no longer cool. Now an album had to be thought out. Artists couldn’t throw together a hit single with a bunch of mediocre songs anymore. Every song had to matter. Album rock had arrived.

If the Beatles had stopped with “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, they would be considered one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time. But they didn’t stop. They had to go and outdo themselves. They had to go and make a masterpiece. They had to go and create “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. In doing so, they became Masters of their Musical Universe.

In an interview with Timothy White, George Harrison summed it up for the rest of us: “There seems to be a running thread here about music and its powerful hold, eh…We who love music, we love the people who make it, we love the sound of it, and we love what it does to us, how it makes us feel, how it helps us love”.

Unfortunately, the Beatles never again accomplished what they did on “Sgt. Pepper”. That is, not until they gave us “Abbey Road”.

The Band That Saved Rock ‘N’ Roll

It’s the 57th anniversary of the Beatles first appearance in the United States.

You’d think February would be no big deal of a month, being as short as it is. But it’s the month that the world’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, does or does not see his shadow. It’s the month George Washington was elected President. It’s the month Queen Elizabeth II became queen.

And it was Feb. 3, 1959, the day the music died. The day Rock ‘n’ Roll lost its soul. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, and the promise they brought to American music, died in a plane crash. No more “That’ll be the day.” No more “Peggy Sue.” No more “Chantilly Lace”. No more “La Bamba”. Then, on March 24, 1958, a day referred to as “Black Monday”, Elvis was drafted into the Army. When he got out in March, 1960, he wouldn’t be the same king of rock ‘n’ roll that once upon a time he had been. He was Col. Tom Parker’s watered down version. Jerry Lee Lewis was banished from rock ‘n’ roll hero-dom and Chuck Berry was in jail. Only Dion, Roy Orbison and the Everlies remained standing. But they weren’t the threats to Western Civilization Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the early Elvis were. The glory days of rock ‘n’ roll were over.

Teenagers were left with the likes of Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis, Bobby Rydell, Paul Anka, and David Seville and the Chipmunks. Weak imitations of the glory that had been rock ‘n’ roll in its heyday. Only the Beach Boys gave us any reason for hope. And their sound was much more smooth than the authenticity of the music that filled the airwaves from Philadelphia, PA to Los Angeles years earlier. There seemed to be no place for the real stuff that had blasted out of our radios and created a revolution of sound. Instead of Buddy Holly, they were now given Bobby Vee. Rock ‘n’ roll was drowning and it had no saviors to throw it a lifeline. At least, not in America. Parents were pleased.

But, across the pond we call the Atlantic, a new sound was being created in the streets and the underground clubs of towns like Liverpool and Manchester, Andover and London and Hamburg. Born out of early rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, and skiffle, this sound would change the world of music forever. Like a storm that starts with a little rain, they would give teenagers back their battlecry of freedom. They would show America how music should be made.

Just as a February day killed off the dynamics and energy of what was once a great sound, it was reborn on another February day in 1964 On the ninth day of February, 1964, history was made on the Sunday night broadcast of the “Ed Sullivan Show”. With a one-two-three-four, John, Paul, George and Ringo in their moptops played “All my loving” and “Till There Was You”. Then “She loves you”. There was a pandemonium in the studio with all the screaming pouring out of the audience. It was Elvis, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry rolled into one. Seventy-three million people watched as the four performed songs from their first Capitol album, “Meet the Beatles”. Within twenty-four hours of their performance on Sullivan, there were few in the country who did not know their names. These Beatles from working class Liverpool were not only musicians and singers, but they wrote their own songs. And they were personable. And funny.

Suddenly a flood of British musicians were breaking down the walls of American radio and television. The Rolling Stones. The Kinks. The Hollies. The Animals. Herman’s Hermits. And dozens more. But they were only stepping into the footprints left by the Beatles.

Then there was an August tour and a movie. Only Elvis had his own movies. But now here were the Beatles with their own movie, “A Hard Day’s Night”. Not only did the director Richard Lester capture on film the songs but also the spontaneity and the spirit that were the Beatles without taming them the way Hollywood had tamed Elvis. It was a jolly good case of pretend with all its madcap zaniness, and even better songs. It was something to see, musicians successfully performing comedy. With the two films and the songs the band wrote for them, it was clear that the Beatles were growing as songwriters, as musicians and as performers. They were emerging as the best thing since Elvis. Soon they would bypass Presley as the new Kings of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

In a time when bands did not perform in large arenas, the Beatles were filling stadiums. In those early years they steamrolled across America in a way that no artist before or since has. Other bands were taking up the mantra of out-Beatling the Beatles. Everybody from the Rolling Stones to the Beach Boys to Buffalo Springfield to the Byrds to the Hollies. Just when the others thought they had beat the Beatles at their game, the Beatles upped the ante and blew away all the competition.

Soon the craziness of Beatlemania made them quit the touring. They went into the studio and innovated, not just once but again and again, producing magic the way no group before or since has. Working with their fifth Beatle of George Martin in Abbey Road Studios, they produced one masterpiece after another, the mature “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, the innovative “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club” and the unsuccessful “Magical Mystery Tour”. Then the straight-up rock ‘n’ roller, “The White Album” and finally what may be their best album, “Abbey Road”, ending their career as a group with the Phil Spector produced “Let It Be”. Their power as musical artists can be seen by the fact to they performed “All You Need Is Love” on a live global television link and were seen by 150 million people in 26 countries on June 26, 1967. They didn’t need gimmicks. They were the real thing.

For seven years, they changed the way we saw things, setting trends not only in music but spirituality, fashion and art. It was the Beatles who introduced Indian music into the mainstream of Western music. Musically they never stood still. They were always evolving, exploring, using different styles to serve the music they were producing. It was the Beatles who made popular songs that were a way to express not only love but other things few songwriters of popular song had dared to express.

It was always the music. That amazing music. Song after song of it pouring out of these four extraordinary artists. Again and again they hit a bulls eye with “And I Love Her”, “Eight Days a Week”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Here, There and Everywhere”, “Norwegian Wood”, “Yesterday”, “Penny Lane”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “In My Life”, “A Little Help from My Friends”, “A Day in the Life”, “She’s Leaving Home”, “The Fool on the Hill”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Lady Madonna”, “Get Back”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Something”, “The Long and Winding Road” and so many more. Songs that have been recorded by hundreds of musicians, maybe thousands, everybody from Frank Sinatra to Aerosmith to Wes Montgomery to Stevie Wonder to Tori Amos to Billy Joel to Norah Jones to Pat Metheny to Guns N’ Roses to Elton John to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Jason Mraz and Michael Jackson, and these are only the names of some of the artists who have tried to put their stamp on some of the greatest popular songs ever written. Cirque du Soleil produced a major show based on the Beatles songs, and who knows how many directors have put their music into a soundtrack.

Without the Beatles, rock ‘n’ roll likely would have survived. But it wouldn’t have had the impact it has had. It would only have been a shadow of the self it became. Those three guitarist and a drummer, from the very beginning on that Ed Sullivan stage, made it look easy, made kids everywhere want to pick up those same instruments and play. When “Rolling Stone Magazine” ticked off the greatest musical artists of the twentieth century, it was not Elvis, it was not Ray Charles, it was not Bob Dylan who was number one. It was the Beatles.

Guitar Man

Finally got it. Been wanting it a long time. It’s been on my wish list for God-knows forever. Santa came through this year. It was all wrapped up in green holiday paper and a nice red ribbon. Even had a bow. It’s a new, six string, electric Zephyr Breeze, the best air guitar ever made by the hand of man. Now that’s what I consider a big wow.

All those years of singing in the shower and practicing “Still My Guitar Gently Weeps” in my bedroom have paid off. I am ready to go public. I may not be good enough to stand next to Spinal Tap but I am pretty good doing what I do.

If Justin Bieber and Cody Simpson can do it, why can’t I? Do what, you ask? Be You tube guy and have a career in my chosen endeavor. What do those guys have that I don’t? Oh, sure they’re ever so cutesy-wutesy. So, big cheese. I’d die my hair blonde if I had hair. I can be the first bald-headed teen idol. And once I get all that fame, I can be the next train wreck the way the Biebs is doing.

Besides I have something going those two don’t. I write my own songs. And I do know who the Beatles were. Last song I wrote started off with these lyrics:

“Other guys have girl friend troubles.

Me, I am lactose intolerant.”

Now I’m a ready teddy. I really know how to boogie. And tune my guitar. My next step is to get in the groove and start my own band. I plan on playing lead and singing. Already I have recruited four others: an air bass player, an air rhythm man and an air drummer. The fifth in the band will be a woman on air keyboard. We’re going to really rock.

Were going to call ourselves Air-o-smith but that sounded like another band. So we’ve come up with something even better. We’ll be Pluto and the Plutonians. I will be Pluto and I plan to scream out the lyrics on “We want our planet back”.

CHORUS:
We want our planet back, jack.
You don’t give it back
We’ll give you a great big whack
Put you in the black.

1. I’m way out in space
In the Nothing Zone
Minding my business
Leaving others alone
Circling ’round the sun
With my five moons
Nix, Hydra and Styx
Kerberos and Charon

2.Sure, four other planets
Have a whole bunch more
And some have not one
But I’m not keeping score
Along comes this guy
Says that I do not
Deserve planet status
Want to say, thanks a lot

3.All this time and more
I’ve been holding up
My end of the system
And not passing the buck
Stopping all those rocks
Some kind of a crowd
All those big asteroids
And meteors earth bound

4.Taking more than my share
Of the many lumps
And now you’re treating
Me like some kind of chump
So won’t you pretty please
Give me some good cheer
Make this a great season
Give me Christmas this year.

Should be a hit, don’t you think? I know I do.