Incertus

I've got to get me a gig like this

John Lundberg (no relation to the character with the similar sounding last name from Office Space) is a blogger with the Huffington Post now, and while we haven't kept up since our time together at Stanford, I'd just like to say that it's never too late for friends, nay, soulmates to get back together and hang out, even if it's just a virtual thing.

All sycophancy out of the way, I'd like to point out that his latest piece is an interesting one, seeing as it marries poetry with King George the Lesser. It's wretched poetry, to be certain; nauseatingly so. It's titled "The Leader." Barf along if you pick up the tune.

Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real

It goes on from there, and as John points out, it's an acrostic which spells out "President George Bush."

I think I just died a little inside.

Fortunately, we're not the intended audience for this piece of glorious wordly fooforaw. No, the intended audience was Pakistani schoolchildren--it was included in an English primer. I wonder if there was a companion piece that spelled out Pervez Musharraf's name?

I want to make clear that I'm not opposed to bad poetry in general. I've written more than my share of it, as a matter of fact--my "Sonnet to Sausage" is excruciating*. One of my favorite parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the section on Vogon poetry. How can one not love "Oh fredddled gruntbuggly? Thy micturations are to me / As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee?" Or even better, something like this:

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one--
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table--
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

Sorry--that was a cheap shot, but he's not judging any of the contests I'm entering this year, at least not so far as I know.

John also mentions the found poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, edited by Hart Seely, but didn't mention that it had been collected into a volume and is available for purchase on Amazon. Amy bought me a copy not long after it came out, and I keep it as proof that I love her beyond measure. I keep it at the office, mind you. I have limits.

* I did actually write that poem, but I had to really cheat on the rhyme--kielbasa is a motherfucker to match.