Let me walk you through a moment
Of what I call “being me.”
Instead of streaming music
And paying a monthly fee
I plugged in my computer
From around 2008,
Pressed power on at 6:15
And it booted up by 8:00,
Loaded up my iTunes
From before it was an app
Then uploaded some files
That will make my right foot tap,
Plugged in my phone and synced it
For an hour and a half
Then enjoyed my music free of charge
With a joyful millennial laugh.
Filed under Poems
If your chorus is just one sentence
Repeated exactly four times
That song isn’t actually music
And one day you’ll pay for your crimes.
Filed under Poems
To make a student concert go
There are some things you need to know.
Just like a wedding, what you hear
May cause you to shed a tear.
They’ll play a tune you know by heart,
Beloved favorite, devoid of art
And then a piece that’s written so
The talentless might play a show.
This will go on for several hours
And won’t be cancelled due to showers
To gird your loins and plug your ears;
You’ll have one for the next ten years.
Filed under Poems
So in the warm parts of the world
Where the snow never falls in December
Do they still play the same Christmas carols
Or some songs Northerners don’t remember
Like “I want a gator for Christmas”
Or “Chestnuts roasting in a forest fire”
Or my particular favorite:
“There’s no snow to shovel when I retire”?
Filed under Poems
Some music tells a story
Through its lyrics and its tune
While other songs can set a mood
Akin to Clair de Lune,
But gather up some saxophones
And play the notes you shouldn’t
And enjoy the kind of angry zen
That other music couldn’t.
You play between the melody
And skip around the beat,
Lighting cigars from wreckage
Of that old Chernobyl heat,
Not thinking of the church or state
Or fighting that good fight
But hearing without listening
And feeling things be right.
When every chord is almost sweet
And every stab of pain
Invites the opportunity
For dancing in the rain
You’ll know you’ve found the answer
And a chill runs down your spine
Because your call’s important
So please stay on the line.
A long time ago
When iPods were new
There was a cool button
And what it would do
Is shuffle your music
So your tunes would play
In a randomized order
And people said “Hey
“This feature is awesome
“But it doesn’t quite do
“What the ‘shuffle’ descriptor
“Implies you want to.”
Now twenty years later
A CEO said
“Nah, it’s still good enough”
And then went off to bed.
Filed under Poems
Gentiles got foreskins, ya,
But my bros got candles nine.
We only got a day of oil
But there’s God, so we’ll be fine.
We can burn these candles y’all
For a dozen days or so
And all you got’s a baby
In a manger full of snow?
You get one day of giving gifts;
We’ve got a fortnight minus two
Plus no Mariah Carey
So come become a jew!
Filed under Poems
The tree is up
The lights are hung
The gifts are wrapped
And stockings strung
The mistle’s toed
Now all I seek
Is to delay the music
For one more week.
Filed under Poems
He may seem like a regular guy
But there’s something you don’t know:
There’s a secret god of rock and roll
Inside this Average Joe.
He can make a room of peasants dance
And blow the roof off nightly
But he also has to pay the bills
To not appear unsightly.
He’s a part-time rockstar with a full-time job,
An overdriven ax and a name tag (“Bob”).
He’s bohemian, rhapsodic, and his stairway to heaven
Just happens to start at the 7/11.
So next time you go out to purchase a slurpee
Just know that the guy who you pay
Might just be the someone you blast as you’re driving,
A new-age Bon Jovi someday,
And know that berating him ‘cause your burrito
Is stale is annoying and wrong
And he’ll write down your name so when he finds fame
Your behavior will be a hit song.
Filed under Poems
The Daily Travesty 