Make Mine Mike

I’ll write the last installment of my SF trip later… for now here’s something called...

Cole Porter I ain’t.

Sometimes I find myself making up songs. And they seem kinda clever at first. Like I’m both Gershwin Bruthas from anotha mutha. ‘Til I wake up and smell the ripoff.

Years ago I was working at Sony Studios, and for no reason whatsoever, I began composing a ballad dedicated to the neighborhood. Don’t remember the lyrics now, but I thought my “Culver City” diddy had a beautiful tune… maybe I should go to the city council and make it the official song? Then I realized: I used same melody as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” It was summertime, don’t know why I had that on the brain… Perhaps the alliteration of Culver City and Christmas Carols?

Yesterday I was crooning my work spiritual, “Shuffling papers, shuffling papers, shuffling papers, all day long!” It was kind of atonal, but original, no? Nah, the music came from a Simpsons episode, when Bart went to a Chuck-E-Cheese type place, and the mechanical animals sang, “You’re the birthday, you’re the birthday, you’re the birthday, boy or girl!”

For whatever it's worth, I suppose that’s my forte: taking existing songs and coming up with new lyrics. Like in college, my former roommate used to call and make fun of me, while accompanying himself on the guitar, which was always awful. So I made my own recording (which I couldn’t find, but I did locate the page with the lyrics), focusing on that urban legend that if your roommate commits suicide, they give you a perfect GPA for the semester. This was to the tune of “Sweet Child of Mine” (before I was convinced Axl was a total fuckhead).

I dunno if anyone would appreciate this but me... the non-Cole Porter, but perhaps a Weird Mike Yankovic?

Of all of the dweebs he is the most
I wish he were dead or at least comatose
So if I lived with him, I could get a four-oh
Now and then he’d call from afar
Play the same three chords on his old guitar
And he wondered why I’d then call him a schmo

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
That roommate of mine
Whoa-whoa-whoa-wh-whoa
Please drink turpentine

He’s full of nothing but apathy
Except when he tried to butt-fuck me
As if I had bent over for the soap
That was back in my sophomore year
And I told him to die when he was near
And then he’d say I was a misanthrope

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
That roommate of mine
Whoa-whoa-whoa-wh-whoa
Or try strychnine

What a big schmo now
What a big schmo