Photos: The poet tries on holiday prayer shawls.
Left: In questionable taste.
Right: Absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
Chagrined that I totally missed "Talk Like a Pirate Day." However, Burke bilinguality tends to center around English and Broken English anyway. Fortunately in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s still Ramadan, the last of our three great Abrahamic faith holidays along with Labor Day and Jewish New Years. But I'm kind of weak on Ramadan, and had bupkes for Labor Day, so this is pretty much what you get. Because, as we say in Texas, “It’s burnin’ daylight,” and I don't feel like waiting around for another Jewish New Year -- or even for another awkward Pirate Day segue.
It’s not every day that you can celebrate the beginning of a new year and honor one of our greatest, yet least appreciated, Jewish-Americans below in poetry. (Or as he might say, "it could be verse.") And while doing so, acknowledging your people’s traditional inclination toward pacifism -- or at least negotiated settlement (except, of course for those settlements that aren't negotiable). To be honest, as I've mentioned, that would have been about a week ago. But as you may be aware, Congress hasn't yet locked me into any kind of a timetable.
And as a bonus, there's a link to a real story at the end from yesterdays Dallas Morning News that bears reading by those who would bear arms.
THE DAY THEY HUNG HENNY YOUNGMAN
by A. Buck Short
Out in the west Texas town of Odessa
He looked like a gambler,
He was such a snappy dresser.
He played his fiddle fickley;
It wasn’t western swing.
He played from Main to Mechhhhico,
Where chhhhomedy is king.
A lynch mob came to view his act;
To see what was the matter.
They didn’t mind his silent strings,
Just his incessant patter.
For he was a ruthless hombre,
The cruelest of cowpokes.
He never rustled Cattle;
He stole other people’s jokes.
So when the posse captured Henny,
And hung their noose around a limb,
They asked what final words he had,
Just to remember him.
He said “Don’t bury me in Vegas;
I died there twice before.
You read about it in the trades;
It’s part of western lore.
Don’t saddle up my pony
And ride away at dawn.
Don’t place my ashes in an urn
Or crypt at Forest Lawn.”
In fact he had just one request;
Henny's final words were not in jest,
As he swung in the breeze.
With a rope around his head,
He slowly turned to them and said
The line he knew they all would dread,
"Just take my life, please.”
THAT CHUCK WAGON AIN'T KOSHER
(so let's make it a little KOS-er)
by A. Buck Short
A chick’n was circlin’ the sky....
(OK get that mental image
in your head right now.)
A chick’n was circlin’ the sky.
I didn’t care, I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t my bird, so I said not a word,
Because, well, I’m just that kinda’ guy.
I felt the same way ‘bout the skunk I hit that day,
With my car on the way to Sundance.
Hundred-one in the shade, and the roadkill I splayed
Smelled just like a poop in my pants.
I had all I could take of the salt in the lake,
The cottonwood trees, hoof-in-mouth disease,
The big western skies, little buffalo pies.
You know that the prairie’s a little bit scary
For Jews who just won’t go outdoors.
Let the gentiles farm. We stay out of harm,
And sell them supplies from our stores.
So don’t think it’s strange we’re not home on the range.
We won’t leave our houses, we don’t rustle cow-ses,
And we wouldn’t fess up if we did.
We don’t hold up trains, just try to use brains,
Like that hombre named “Billy the Yid.”
So give us a home, were the cattle don’t roam ,
And the herd isn’t makin’ a racket
No mountain range thrills, like the New York Catskills,
Where the only wild thing’s Buddy Hackett.
And don’t bury me on the western prairie,
With a poem or a funeral hymn.
Just fill up my box with some bagels, some lox,
And last rights from a rabbi named “Shlim.”
I’m allergic to hay and to horses that neigh,
And to being way out in the west.
So find me a gal at the OK Corral,
With a six-pointed star on her chest.
There are few western Jews without similar views,
Pay attention, and hear what I say.
With ten-gallon skull caps and a nice pair of chaps,
We’ll be yodelin’ “Yippie –oy-(OK, this is your part).”
ONLY IN TEXAS - For your dining and dancing pleasure, we call your attention to the following, excerpted from the Dallas Morning News story by Jeffrey Weiss (12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 By JEFFREY WEISS - The Dallas Morning News). If you can resist going to the
Dallas Morning News link at the end of this post, mazeltov, you’ve got real willpower.
MEMBER OF SYNAGOGUE APOLOGIZES
HE CALLS GUNSHOT MISHAP; Temple restates its no-firearms policy
Temple Emanu-El of Dallas is sending members an unusual pre-Yom Kippur message: Please don't pack heat in the synagogue. And by the way, the fellow who dropped his gun last week is very, very sorry.
The special letter, mailed Tuesday in advance of this weekend's High Holiday services, was a reaction to an incident that briefly made last week's Rosh Hashanah service the most famous in the nation. But not in a good way.
A 50-year member of the congregation stood for a prayer Wednesday night, and his legally concealed handgun slipped to the floor and went off. Three people were slightly injured, but the service was not interrupted.
The man with the gun, Marvin Marks, is a retired police officer. He is not to be confused with Marvin Marks, the retired furniture store owner who was sitting one row back and a few seats over and had nothing to do with the mishap.
... Mr. Marks, who is 81, also had a word of apology for his fellow Mr. Marks, who is 86 and had to explain a few times that he didn't drop the gun.
Following the service, the entire congregation retired to the lobby for lavish New Year's refreshments donated by the Jewing family of Southfork, and featuring a chopped liver mold in the shape of Larry Hagman. (BTW, one of the injured worshippers was Mr. Marks' daughter, who he shot in the foot. We are not making up this last part.)
Related story by A. Buck Short:
Ringing In the New Year with a Near Death Experience Maybe you didn't hear? I've recently been attacked by a crazed rabbi – but who hasn’t? He was apparently offended by my act – but who isn’t? In a fit of rage the holy man hurled a copy of the Old Testament directly at me – in fact all five books. He was packing a five-shooter. It was too late to duck. One of the volumes hit me square in the chest. Luckily, I happened to be carrying a bullet in my left breast pocket. Had it not been for the bullet, that Bible might have pierced my heart.
Yes, you're 100% correct. None of this has anything to do with anything, but what was I gonna do? Take it to New Haven? BTW, in case you don't think this has been enough embarrassment for our particular tribe, by all means feel free to check out the previous related post of about a week ago:
ROSH TO JUDGMENT: Ben Stein explains the Bush Rosh Hashana Faux Pas or next week's:
JEWSY FRUIT - The Lulav, the Etrog, and Me: A Buck Short Explains the Upcoming Holidays.
_ _ _
Roger Burke was the film commissioner in Dallas, TX for 15 years (taking time out for meals). Until recently, he had been publishing the sporadic satirical newsletter Occasional News Events From Around Texas And Selected States (acronym intentional), because only 10,000 other people out there making up fake news isn’t nearly enough. He also indulges the alternate persona of A. Buck Short, has no known priors, and to this day insists that his photograph has never appeared in any major metropolitan newspaper associated with the verb “fondle” – at least not in this country.