Notes

You are gone, and I miss you.
I want to write a story for you.
To remember.
I sit here, pen in hand, but the page is blank.
I cannot stop crying. My tears cover the page.
I crumple it up and toss it away.
The floor is covered with tear-stained pages.
So, still crying, I go to sleep.
In my dream you pick up the pages, smooth them out, and sit down at the piano.
Your hands hesitate, then, reading stains as notes, you play.
It is beautiful.
I can stop crying now.
And write this story for you.

Macarena

Jose Menendez was known far and wide as The King of The Macarena.

He was constantly putting his hands on his hips, jumping, and turning from morning to night.

Then, one day, he was doing the dance up on a bar and slipped on some spilled peach Margarita mix, and hit his head on the floor, putting him into a coma.

His living will said to play his Macarena tape by his bedside. If he didn’t get up and dance, pull the plug.

So, we did. And he lay there still.

We pulled the plug… on that damn tape player.

The Minister

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We are a small town on the prairie.
Not many people come here from the rest of the world.
And we really like it here, there’s not much reason to leave.
We don’t bother with televisions, the one radio station’s fine enough.
It plays the same music it has always played, over and over.
Because we grew up with it, and like it.
There’s one church we all go to every Sunday.
The minister starts at the pulpit, gives the same sermon every week.
Then we go home, step on to our recharger pads, and all shut down.
Good night.

Flotilla

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It sounded like a good idea at the time, really.
Load up with relief supplies, get on some boats, and try to deliver the supplies to the poor defenseless children trapped inside.
How wrong we were.
Once we boarded and got underway, that’s when they started blasting music at us…
“It’s a small world after all…”
Surrounded by singing jeering puppets, we tried to paddle back to port, but the boats kept moving on and on.
We’d been set up. It was a trap.
We threw the boxes ashore, covered our ears, and screamed prayers for this nightmare to end.

Johnny comes marching home…

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When Johnny comes marching home again, we won’t be singing Hurrah Hurrah.
No, we’ll be waiting behind the woodshed with knives.
Johnny may think he’s a big hot-shot war hero, but his brothers who went to the front with him sent back letters saying otherwise.
A lousy shot.
A worthless coward.
A loose-lipped traitor.
He may think he made the explosion look like an artillery shell accident, but Tomkins saw it. And he sent the letter before Johnny finished him off, too.
We hear his horse come up the path, draw our knives, and his whistling grows louder.
STAB HIM!

The Cockroach

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The only words I know from the song La Cucaracha are the opening words.
I don’t know Spanish, so the supposedly rich satirical madness of the song has eluded me for all my life.
I’ve looked online for the lyrics, but you can’t trust Wikipedia these days. And those automatic translators end up garbling the words.
So, I went to the library and asked the librarian for help.
She sat me down at a table, clapped her hands, and a Mariachi band came by my table to play.
Pen in hand, I copied down what I could.
And tipped them.

Miranda Rights

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If you want your Miranda rights, you’re going to need this fruit hat.
You’re also going to need a Brazilian band backing you.
These maracas might help.
Sure, you have the right to remain silent, but when you hear that Latin beat, you’re going to sing and dance.
Sure, call a lawyer. Just make sure he has a suit and shoes for dancing, and you can dance with him.
The cameras in the court room will be the paparazzi, and your trial will be in all the tabloids.
Anything you say will be used against you.
That’s why you’ll sing.

Roll Out The Barrel

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As the band played the Beer Barrel Polka, we rolled out the barrel and propped it up.
Something shifted inside. Something solid.
We opened it up and found a corpse.
According to the wallet in his jacket pocket, he was Jimmy “The Fish” Muldoon, a heavy with the Chicago Mafia.
“So, what do we do?” said the tuba player. “Any ideas, guys?”
“Hey, it’s the Beer Barrel Polka!” I shouted. “Let’s roll out the barrel of fun!”
We tapped another keg and partied hard with Jimmy.
The next morning, we all envied Jimmy, being too dead to be hung over.

The Tribe

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For thirty-two years, in this lush and beautiful valley, members of the Tse-E Tribe have been singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” continuously.
When one tribesman in the group tires or needs to eat or sleep, he leaves and another takes his place.
Not that anyone gets much sleep. These guys sing pretty loud, no matter how much wool you stick in your ears.
This will probably continue for a few more years. The younger generation tends not to stick around, and the remaining singers are old and frail.
No respect for tradition, these kids. Even if it’s really stupid.

Piano on the bus

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When I was little, I played the cello.
It was too big for me to carry, so I switched to the violin.
When I got older, I tried to play the piano.
The piano is not very easy to carry, but that was not one of my selection criteria.
Besides, the piano has wheels. You can roll it places.
Just don’t try to take it on a city bus.
Sure, an upright piano can fit in the doors, but they won’t let you roll it on.
Even with the wheelchair ramp.
So that’s why I have this iPod.
Wanna listen?