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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

"Always look on the bright side of death."

With apologies to the Pythons...

"Some guys on our team are bad
They can really make you mad
Whereas Giancarlo makes you scream and curse.
When you're reaming out some Tyl-er
Don't choke on all your bile or
You'll never get through
All hundred-sixty-two.

And...always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the right side of life.

If Tanaka's jolly rotten
There's one thing you've forgotten
Which is that we can't field a ball to save our lives.
If we can't pitch at all
We still can't hit the ball
And we're playing like our hands are taped to knives.

So always look on the bright side of death
As these Yanks draws their terminal breath

Our team's a piece of shit
When you think of it.
It's best they suck in all ways the same year.
We'll sort out these feeble lads
And get past these hitting fads
And put out all these sad-sacks on their ear!

And always look on the bright side of life—

Worse things happen at sea, you know!

Always look on the bright side of life—

I mean, what did we have to lose?
We lost to the Sox by two games last year, we're going to lose to them by twenty this year.
It's still losing!

Always look on the bright side of life—

Cheer up, you old bugger!
It could be worse—Jacoby could be playing!

Always look on the bright side of death...

(Much whistling)








10 comments:

Urban Farmer formerly known as DutchFan said...

Nicely done. Even though the thought of the brother of an English Jesus bemoaning the Yankees is difficult to fathom.

And may I remind this negative, Boone-bashing, Joe Binder revival clacque, that we should stay calm and collected. Because, just to comfort you, in August when we visit them dangerous Marlins again, they will be seriously rebuilding and starting their single A line-up against us and revenge will be ours.

Patience my friends. We will get to 91 and we will play the coveted playoff lottery game.

Negativity will get us nowhere.

They know not if it's dark outside or light

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


You can project a better performance in the remaining 146 games pretty easily -- Stanton hits, Glyber comes up and plays to his recent AAA stats, Bird returns early, Sonny Gray figures it out, CC Sabathia comes back and endures -- etc.

Or you can be negative. That's actually too easy.

What I find discouraging is:

a. The Red Sox. Last night, they beat -- like a rented mule -- a team that had a 13-and-3 record.

b. Our pitching. Tanaks has surrendered 5 HRs in 22 innings pitched in '18. That is a higher rate than he posted in 2017 (35 HRs in 178 innings)

c. The Mets are 12-and-4. What could God be thinking?

d. Billy McKinney's injury, as well as Clint Frazier's. I regard injuries to pitchers as the price of doing business, but maybe one of these guys could help.

e. Maybe ABoone is making great moves in the clubhouse, but thus far I se nothing on the field that's a positive divergence from Joe Girardi's tenure. Maybe it's coming, maybe not.

Beana27 said...

Bravo HC66. I whistled along as I read. :)

Anonymous said...

Well done!

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

Also,

Would you say you were more influenced by Frank Jacobs or Alan Sherman when it comes to this type of stuff?

Doug K.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Thank you, Doug K.

Both are incredible talents. I guess I'm more of an Alan Sherman junkie—"To you King Louie we say phooey!"—but it's hard to choose.

This one, though, was all Pythons. I especially loved the impromptu, "Worse things happen at sea!" Genius!

Anonymous said...


I am course a big Alan Sherman fan as well. I keep a copy of "My Son The Folk Singer" near my desk but for me ultimately it has to be Frank Jacobs.

Sherman was amazing but he was singular. He was always, "Alan Sherman".

Frank Jacobs had to tell complex stories in song with plot consistency, like in any of his Mad movie parodies. Staying true to what he was parodying. Check out "East Side Story" about the west vs. the commies at the UN. Amazing!


And on top of that he could do songs like "Watchdog in the Night" or "Hello Deli" just like Alan.

But what really blew me away... I recently read a piece by him where he did a round robin of famous poems each one done in the style of the next poet in line.

So as an example he writes The Raven as done by Edna St.Vincent Millay and then Poe does "The Road Not Taken" and then Frost does one of Millay's poems. But there were like ten of them. In a circle. And I finished reading it and was just in awe.

But as Alan Sherman would say in "Oh Boy" "Both great."

Doug K.

Anonymous said...


Last thing, This was where I read it BTW.

ttps://www.amazon.com/MADs-Greatest-Writers-Jacobs-Decades/dp/0762456574/ref=sr_1_1/132-8537162-8272808?ie=UTF8&qid=1524104057&sr=8-1&keywords=Frank+Jacobs

Also one quick thing about Monty Python. So on amazon prime they have there old British sketch shows and one of them is At last the 1948 Show

Which has: Clease, Chapman, Idle, and amazingly Marty Feldman and some other guys.

And then there's "Do not Adjust Your Set" which has Terry Jones and Micheal Palin among others. But what's interesting is, while the sketches are OK you can see how much funnier they will be when the guys get together and form Python. so you've got Michael Palin as a shopkeeper annoying his customer with what they don't stock but its good but not great. It needs John Cleese to be the shopper and you can see it. Fascinating stuff.

Doug K.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Good to know, Doug K—I will check it out. And yes, I did used to live for those Mad magazines. They were a terrific education! I remember that I used to be able to talk with adults about movies I was not yet allowed to see, just from reading the satires.

Also, there are still several Tom Lehrer songs I know by heart.

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