Note to the reader: Part IV of My Friend the Spy must wait, as (1) I have met the West Coasters, an experience that demands recounting; (2) I’ve got the haiku in my blood; and (3) you can tide yourself over with info on my friend the spy through this link, helpfully provided by MarleyFan.
Chapter the first, in which lonely East Coaster wonders whether she is victim of some elaborate joke and will be spending the evening alone:
Car with West Coasters
Wanders aimlessly around
West Hollywood. Lost.Cell phone rings loudly
Parrish, where the hell are you?
Like I know? Puh-leez.Finally, headlights.
Station wagon bears down fast:
Hail, Godfreymobile!Together at last!
Yet still lost. Where the hell is
That damn restaurant?
Chapter the second, in which all our heroes unite:
Big as a Chevy!
We shout across the expanse!
Smaller table, please.New table secured
I gaze at my companions.
Herewith, impressions:She looks nothing like
Her picture – oh yeah, that’s a-
nother Wendy West.Cyber-crush confirmed
The wicked wit of the west:
Lisa T. Remain.All reports are true
I’ll rate him, while he grades you
J. Zitter is hot.I think I’d love SWells
If only she weren’t such a
b-i-t-c-hHa! Just kidding, Steph!
Despite what all those late-night
Text messages said.And “Oh,” Scott Godfrey:
Couldn’t take my eyes off his
Sweet little ascot
Chapter the third, in which the evening almost ends, but not quite:
Led by a phone call
The Godfreymobile diverts
One more drink? Why not!Seven drinks later
The bar staff goes all Shakespeare,
shouts: “Out, out damn sot[s].”East Coast meets West Coast
If not love at first sight, then
I ask you: Whatsit?
Finally, the epilogue:
Big apology
To smitten West Coast love slave
Bryan Waterman
And, a secondary epilogue, for Andrea:
Are you bored with this
crazy shark-jumping haiku?
too bad, searing bitch!
Next week: Ted Koppel enters the mix.
You surprise me with your multiple talents, Parrish, even though I shouldn’t be surprised at anything you pull out anymore. After all, I’ve heard you sing birthday lyrics to Bacon.
But I had never realized my name would scan perfectly into a line of Haiku. Put it together with “love slave” and I can’t imagine the creative email I’m going to be getting off of people’s google porn searches.
I didn’t realize you’d never met Wendy out here: after all, she’s the most bicoastal one among us.
Wendy is bi??
Lisa, you know I love you. And you are clever. Clever beats cloying nostalgia like a paper over rock. You rock paper my dear (even cyber paper).
clever haikus won’t
distract us from our duty
all must VOTE today
Parish, love the post,
but you left out the cocaine
snorted in the john.
It is times like these
I’m really glad I chose to
use a pseudonym
For the record, mom:
I went to the bathroom to
egest, not ingest
Not that I want to
revive that particular
comments thread here. (Yech.)
And Trixie is right
Please everyone vote today
Throw the %&#$* bums out.
And was it cocaine
or the crush-haze in the air
which made you love us?
No matter, darling,
We basked in warm Parrish-light:
you toasted my bread!
“Crap,” I sigh again –
Should have canceled dinner plans,
Or at least called late.
Tell me, left-coasters,
With your sun, sand, surf, citrus…
What’s with all the blow?
I crave your presence.
Exit the metropolis–
Spring in Madison?
Transnational flights,
Loaded hijinks with new friends–
Parrish strikes again.
Why Los Angeles?
A screenplay? Not you too, hon.
Whither Ted Koppel?
Nope, not a screenplay
a possible blog for a
teevee show. wowsa.
Wager, I dare say
Anticipation will make
our meeting sweeter
and, just for a little something different, a limerick:
“What was it,” asked Lisa Tremain.
“Do you love us, or was it cocaine?”
Well, let it be said,
though I toasted your bread,
From toasting my brain I refrain.
I once met a woman named Long Play
who appeared to be quite foxay.
Though we did no cocaine,
our time was not plain.
The night went on till the next day!
%&#$* has only one syllable?
I was wondering if anyone would catch that… drat!
Darn you both, I had already composed a limerick (my father’s daughter), but got interrupted before I could post it and you beat me to it.
There once was a vixen named Parrish
Who thought west coasters shallow and garish.
But in one drunken night
It was love at first sight
And her lust for LA’s turned affairish.
14: the clumsy scan in line two is more than made up for by the word “affairish.”
bw (aka syllabic policeman)
Excuse me! That is an anapestic substitution in the first foot! Three anapests, the third with a feminine ending–completely legal!
Ooh ooh – scansion showdown! I *love* it!
it may be an anapestic substitution and it may be completely legal, but it’s still clumsy.
nevertheless, “affairish” made it all good, honey,
oops. that sentence should have ended with a period.
i suppose i should have added that no matter what it was better than scott’s limerick. scott should stick to haiku. and making up nick names for his friends. “Long Play” covers whatever faults the limerick may have contained.
bryan (aka black and white aka you little bitch)
don’t they call it “poetic” license?
license is one thing, licentiousness quite another. and you, my good friend, are licentious.
Jeez Waterman, I know you’re bummed that we have a new favorite ECer, but chill the fuck out.
I call for a nickname thread! Use all the poetic licentious you want.
There once was a gal named SWells
Who so loved ghetto slang, as in “Hellz”
Though she tried her sweet best
With tricked-out anapest
BW pronounced she had failed.
Dave B – Debaser
Rachel Berkowitz – Sam’s Sister
Pandora Brewer – Pabst Blue Ribbon
Cedric Cedarbrook – CC (can’t improve upon perfection)
Farrel Fawcett – Factually Flawed
Trixie Honeycups – THe One
Brooke Maury – Big Mamma
Lisa Parrish – Long Play
Slade – Sade
Stella – Ricky Henderson (stretch for it; it’s there)
Lane Twitchell – Leaning Tower
Adriana Valez – Audio Visual
Tim Wagner – Tie Width
Bryan Waterman – Black ‘n’ White
Nathan Waterman – Not Withstanding
Wendy West – With Words
Jeremy Zitter – Just Zenough
Steph Wells – Sweet Water
Ruben Mancillas – Really Mad
Lisa Tremain – Last To Go
Ms. Tremain, are we to take “failed” as an off-rhyme? If so, that’s more than a little stretch. If not, is your departure from the AABBA rhyme scheme intentional? If not, well, it’s time to bone up on your mechanics. If so, this critic must take exception to your ham-fisted and forced attempt to rhyme metaphorically with SWells’s ‘failure’ (at least according to BW) to live up to the poetic strictures of the limerick with your own intentional failure to rhyme. “BW proclaimed, ‘Something smells!'” would have worked, though I’m not sure that “BEE DOUBLE U” fits, metrically. I take your point – that officiously clinging to rules takes all the fun out of a humorous poetic frolic – but honestly, must you beat us over the head with it?
Thank you, Tim, but I’ve had quite enough professorish feedback for one day. I am in grad school, you know. You have only served to prove a recent opinion:
“You’re so rules-y.”
What a tough f—in’ crowd.
Steph, Parrish, someone! Please reprimand Tim for his reprimand.
Yeah, get over it, Tie Width.
Tie Width? (pause) Tie Width. (longer pause) Tie Width? (repeat)
El Tee, there’s a smidge of self-undercutting irony in that comment. Were we in conversation I would have put on a facetiously supercilious Oxbridge accent. I think your new nickname should be “Let It Go.”
yours,
Mr. Pink
Golly, my peeps are such nerds…
Except you, LP
glorious haiku master
time to move out West.
wait a second j
are you calling me a nerd?
one chance. take it back.
You can’t hurt me, Tie Width. I’ve been called worse things than “Let it go” before.
And Jeremy calls his friends nerds after the interjection of “Golly”?
Damn, am I falling into yet another evil comment trap?
I’ve also been called worse things than “gullible.”
xo
would someone please please please write a haiku to celebrate the turnover of the house?
HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH! TOUCHDOWN!
bye, we won’t miss you
thanks for the memories (not)
so long, and onward!
let the cocaine flow
we, in the majority
will at last prevail!!
nancy pelosi
our new speaker of the house
thank you very much
i’ll sleep well tonight
could this be the beginning
i surely hope so
thanks, t. how bout: “so long you douche bags” instead for the last line?
things are looking good
can’t be too optimistic
after so much grief
but still, i have hope
overthrow the paradigm!
let’s get things going!
Oh! haiku prevails
for democracy, but still…
i wish i could stop
please kill me, a few years ago i participated in a series of penis and vagina haikus with some friends, and couldn’t think outside the haiku structure for several days afterwards. lisa, damn you for getting me started on this.
love trix
yeah, douch bags. i like it. you write that one. i have to stop checking this website for at least 12 hours.
goodnight.
i mean, douche.
ok that’s all.
just so trixie doesn’t have to:
eleven house seats
taken from the evil clutch
of rich war mongers
yet here in cali
we’ve still got a govenor
who starred in Swamp Thing.
and, yes, I know it was Predator, but the haiku police would have caught me on the scan.
i would have accepted pred’tor, but i’m all 18c and shit.
all y’all’s election haiku have me smiling. i want to say sorry to scott for earlier. election eve jitters and all. the world is a better place tonight. please let it be true.
i’m still up watching the result come in.
for pennsylvania, things are looking good.
let’s all write some smug haikus tomorrow!
yeah!!!
Aw, Black ‘n’ White, no need for sorrow.
Y’all need to save some comment juice for my post in 6 short hours.
As I bed tonight
House, thankfully, has gone blue.
Will senate follow?
Alas moniker
“Tie Width” still to be explained.
Will clarity come?
i want to say sorry to scott for earlier. election eve jitters and all.
how cute.
Scott’s right, I am “Last to go.”
factually flawed? please explain dear godfrey.
I, on the other hand, sort of rhyme with some archaic American beer. Cool.
i would have gone with P-Box, myself, but maybe it was just too obvious. I think Scott may be right: PBR is a pretty cool nickname.
“P-Box”, talk about google porn searches, yeeha!
[…] Andrea, #6 on “Six more degrees of GW nation” G-Lock, #10 on “I’d like to spank the academy” Scott Godfrey, #8 on “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi” Ashley Hahn, #7 on “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi” Stephanie Wells, #16 on “East meets West: A haiku extravaganza” […]