Michael Stipe calls the Rock & Roll Crisis Line, part 2

View Part 1 here.

MICHAEL STIPE (caller): I’m breaking through,
MOE (counselor): Did you ask the elephant for help?
STIPE: I’m bending spoons,
MOE: Also no problem for an elephant.
STIPE: I’m planting flowers in full bloom.
MOE: I don’t think an elephant would be good at that.
[VISUAL: Elephant in a gardening hat, unaware that she is trampling freshly planted flowers.]
STIPE: I’m looking for answers from the great–
MOE: The Great Gatsby? Great Expectations? Grated cheese?
STIPE: answers from The Great Beyond.
MOE: The astral plane? The aethereal plane? The microplane?

Michael Stipe calls the Rock & Roll Crisis Line, part 1

MOE (counselor): Rock & Roll Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
MICHAEL STIPE (caller): I’m pushing an elephant up the stairs.
MOE: Uh…
STIPE: I’m tossing out punch lines
MOE: Right. Uh…don’t stand too close behind an elephant.
STIPE: that were never there.
MOE: It’s a good place not to be. It could get messy.
STIPE: Over my shoulder
MOE: Your shoulder, your face, everywhere.
STIPE: a piano falls
MOE: Wait, are you describing a dream?
STIPE: crashing to the ground.
MOE: Because that sounds a bit like a REM state.

Poet’s answer an age-old question: Bob Dylan on why the chicken crossed the road

Happy 80th birthday to Bob Dylan!

How many roads must a chicken cross
Before you can call her a hen?
And what is the reason she crossed that road?
And what did she do then?
The eggs are, my friend, they’re rollin’ in the wind.
The eggs are, they’re rollin in the wind.

 

 

Leonard Cohen calls the Rock & Roll Crisis Line

COUNSELOR: Rock & Roll Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
LEONARD COHEN (caller): They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom
COUNSELOR: That sounds cruel & unusual. What was the charge?
COHEN: For trying to change the system from within.
COUNSELOR: Which administration?
COHEN: I’m coming now
COUNSELOR: Oh. That should just be 4 to 8 years of boredom.
COHEN: I’m coming to reward them.
COUNSELOR: That sounds premature. What are you getting them?
COHEN: First we take Manhattan
COUNSELOR: I thought they had New York locked down.
COHEN: Then we take Berlin!
COUNSELOR: But that’s not–…oh, wait. Do you mean the cities? Or, like…a cocktail and a jelly doughnut?

Poetry Crisis Lime part 2

Read Part 1 here.

SFX (coconuts): clop clop    clop clop    clop clop    clop clop

POETRY CRISIS LIME: Aaaaaagh!

JUICED ORANGE HALVES: It’s only a flesh wound!

HARRY NILSSON: And call me in the mo-orning.

Listen to “Coconut” by Harry Nilsson here.

Did you know that Harry Nilsson supplied the actual coconuts used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Read more here.

You wanna buy a duck?

PATTI LA BELLE: Voulez vous acheter un canard?
LIL’ KIM: Un quoi?
LIL’ KIM (to Pink): Voulez vous acheter un canard?
PINK: Un quoi?
PINK (to Christina Aguilera): Voulez vous acheter un canard?
CHRISTINA AGUILERA: Un quoi?
MYA: Canard à l’orange marmalade.

EN ANGLAIS:
PATTI: You wanna buy a duck?
KIM: A what?
KIM (to Pink): You wanna buy a duck?
PINK: A what?
PINK (to Christina): You wanna buy a duck?
CHRISTINA: A what?
MYA: Duck à l’orange marmalade.

The Cure at Troy call the Poetry Crisis Line (part 2)

See Part 1 here (or see the 3 pages together below).

 

Congratulations to newly inaugurated President Joe Biden (who quoted from the same play in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention). May we all make it through the lengthy healing process.

JERRY (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
THE CURE (chorus): Human beings suffer
JERRY: Philosophers have written a great deal on the question of why people suffer.
THE CURE: They torture one another
JERRY: That is one reason.
THE CURE: They get hurt and get hard.
JERRY: As long as it’s consensual.
THE CURE: No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured.
JERRY: So we’re talking about a lengthy healing process?

Excerpted from The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney