Make Mine Mike

Lately, I’ve been visiting Surgical Strikes a lot, and Dan Tobin’s funny posts inspire me to be creative with my comments. More so than I’ve been on my own blog. A writer friend of mine called it “alley-ooping”. One guy comes up with a clever idea, and sometimes the other guy takes it to the hole. And sometimes the other guy should just leave well enough alone.

Like when Dan posted about how they poorly censor the foul language of movies on the non-pay cable stations (“mickeyfickey” “Mr. Falcon” “golddarned”), which reminded me of how they often poorly translate movies on DVDs, especially the expletives.

I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead a million times, so one time I decided to play the DVD with the Spanish language option. I knew the dialogue well enough and was curious to see how they’d translate some of the racier lines. In the first scene, Shaun explains to the group that he always brings his flat-mate Ed with him to the pub, because Ed doesn’t have many friends. Then Ed steps over and says, “Can I get any of you cunts a drink?”

In Spanish: “¿Algunas personas quieren una cerveza?”
Which roughly translates to “Anyone wanna beer?”

Pfft. The joke is lost. And I didn’t get to learn how to say the “c-word” en español.

The other advantage to commenting on Tobin's site is he’s already set up the situation. For my readers to appreciate my song parody below, I’d have to tell you that Dan’s a rabid Red Sox fan, hates the Yankees, especially because Johnny Damon went from Boston to New York, and the Sox replaced him with Coco Crisp, a player from Cleveland who was named after a Kellogg’s cereal. Got all that?

So when Tobin mentioned his favorite Beatles songs, I composed "A Dan in the Life":

I read a blog today oh boy
About a Boston man who hates the Yanks
And though the man has iffy tastes
I just had to re-tor-ort.
Johnny Damon’s in New Yor-or-ork.

Dan blew his mind at Fenway Park
He had noticed that the line-up’s changed.
A crowd of retahhds checked Coco Crisp.
They’d seen his face — surreal.
Nobody was sure if he was from Cleveland or a breakfast meal…

I love to… egg… you… on…

(’cause I’m the egg-man, but that’s a different song)

As I told Dan, there ain’t no oop without the alley.