Brevity by Dan Thompson for July 24, 2021

Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,

My parents treat me rough.

With all their marijuana,

They won’t give me a puff.

They didn’t wanna have me,

But somehow I was had.

Leapin’ lizards, that’s why I’m so bad!

Officer Krupke, you’re really a square.

This boy don’t need a judge, he needs an analyst’s care!

It’s just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.

He’s psychologically disturbed!

“What’s that humming sound?” “Leonard Bernstein hitting 20,000 RPM.” ;-)

You know, I remember a few years ago

Some funny things used to happen to me

About 1956-57

At that time there was no blues scene

Or not really any kind of scene in London

I used to go out and play my guitar in the streets

And sing things with passing my hat down

I remember one particular night

I was playing the guitar in a little alleyway

Just off of Wardour Street in Soho

And I got busted by the police

This policeman come up and dragged me and my guitar

And my hat full of pennies off to the police station

Anyway, the next day

I had to appear in Marlboro Street Police Court

And it was quite a day

Police officer giving his evidence

I was proceeding in a southernly direction, mi-lord

When I heard strange sounds

Coming from Wardour Place, mi-lord

A sort of boogie woogie music was being played

On further investigation, I saw the defendant

Standing there with a guitar and an old hat

On the floor collecting pennies

Well, I decided that he was contravening

A breach of the peace there, as there was

A traffic jam about five miles long down Wardour Street

Wondering what all the fuss was about

So then I arrested the defendant

Ah, just one moment, officer

Well, what is this boogie woogie music

Here we’re talking about?

“Oh, well, mi-lord”, said the officer

Getting out his notebook, obviously

Been doing up his homework

It’s a kind of jazz-rhythm music

Peculiar to the American-Negro

Oh, and what was the defendant doing

Playing this kind of music there in Wardour street?

Anyway I got off with a caution

A years conditional discharge

But I’ll always remember that policeman

And his boogie woogie music

So don’t try to lay no boogie woogie

On the king of rock and roll

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

Boy, how those lyrics could be misinterpreted these days. Does anybody use ‘gay’ in its original meaning any more?

God how I hate that stupid movie.

Poor Jet’s Fan lol

I was in a Rebel Without a Cause stage production, and inbetween rehearsals and performances they played the West Side Story album to keep us in the ‘mood’. Unfortunately I internalized the whole album. Before our last performance I just got back from Altamont, I had seen things that made Rebel look tame.