Poem for 2005:
GET THE FEELING
So they executed Tookie
Took-took-Tookie goodbye
It does not break my heart to execute the executioner
Of three cowering immigrants begging for their lives
And a poor 7-11 clerk
Nothing cute about that execution
Tookie broke their hearts
With a shotgun
Redemption for murder with ghost-written children’s books?
Now that’s a child’s story right there
They gave him the death penalty and while I think he’s guilty I think
they executed the wrong guy
They need to execute the guy who designed low-rise jeans, I think, and
who designs all the car commercials that say things on four wheels are
ecstatic experiences along the lines of Buddha or Bukka White or Booker
T.
They’re worrying about the wrong guy, are Mike Farrell and Jesse Jackson
I’m worried about the guy who hosts Entertainment Tonight
Now that’s first-degree murder
And I’m worried about the death sentence being enforced by so-called
Christians, and so-called Neocons and
And so-called commentators, and so-called newspapers
And SO-callers
They’ve lined up intelligence and thinking for the lethal injection
And flowers and trees and marmosets and frigate birds
And the rivers in China and the jungles of Indonesia currently being
stripped for gold
They’ve turned the earth into a strip-tease act
Peeling away layers of life for the titillation of fat bald old rich men
Like Dick Cheney
I went to the Church of the Range Rover Christmas Eve, what about you
I went to the Church of the Ford Escalade or was it the Toyota Tundra
never mind because it was a hell of a sermon
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
And it’s the experience of a car that counts
That’s what the preacher said
Whenever you need the experience of controlling a big machine and making
it go real fast
Because you can’t control the machinery inside you
Say Hallelujah! Say Lincoln Navigator!
Now there was a navigator, Lincoln
Of course, they shot him, like so many other great navigators like
Ghandi, Lennon, King
Sounds like a law firm
I’d take my business there
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
Get the rush
Get the rush
They’re selling experience now, they say
You don’t own a two-ton truck, you own an experience
Well I don’t know about you but I think millions of years of evolution
and thinking and music and literature and philosophy and science and
aspiration really weren’t really aimed at life experience becoming a
truck
Perhaps you didn’t notice this because you’ve been busy suckling at the
Starbucks teat and typing messages about your sex thrills on your
blackberry wireless
I thought all blackberries came without wires, but not anymore, I guess
They’ve got everything wired now, right down to the blackberries and
black rage and white rage and
rage is a lucrative career now
What’s that, you’re majoring in Rage? I hear there’s quite a future in
it these days
You can make a killing
Human resources is so not there anymore
You know what human resources is, don’t you, it’s the science of
treating humans inhumanely
People major in escorting old ladies out of the building after they’ve
been laid off after twenty years of hard labor
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
Get the rush
Get the rush
Here’s the news of the past year: evil, corruption, and a little bit
more evil, and also, a bit of corruption, and by the way, there was
considerable evil, and now with the weather here’s Johnny Mountain,
Johnny you’re looking very festive in that holiday tie
Well, we’ve got a big cold front of evil coming in, Ann, and your
dimples are extra cute tonight, and there is a strong chance of
corruption lasting through the week, month, and year, and decade, and
over here on the Live Doppler you can see this big swirling system of
high pressure, very very high pressure which could result in a great
deal of depression, death and suffering, now here’s Jim with sports
Hi, Johnny, Happy Holidays sloppy hollandaise crappy Bolognese floppy
marmalade soppy roller skates
Which holidays, Jim, well I mean whichever you celebrate, well I
celebrate the birth of Beethoven, but Johnny, that’s not a legally
sanctioned holiday
Like Groundhog Day
Good thing you didn’t say Merry Christmas, Johnny, or they’d fire you
For offending lonely Jewish people and Muslims and blacks and maybe
parakeets
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays
I’d like to get the feeling, any feeling, really, but mostly I’ve been
feeling like I can’t feel much of any feeling lately
Because every time I feel around the radio or television I feel people
feeling death and suffering
And worry---no, deep concern---no, vast, artery-blocking anguished
consternation!
Over Tom Cruise
And Jen’s New Start---Why She’s Stronger and Sexier than Ever!
And everywhere I see humans feeling that they want money
Which of course leaves you with no feeling at all
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Colors of Benneton
For which it stands
One nation under demographics and marketing majors
Get the feeling
Get the feeling
Bush got the feeling, and Cheney
They just rearranged the doomsday succession in the federal government
to include more Neocons and less military
Good they’re planning for doomsday, along with Israel and the Mossad and
the Department of Homeland Security
There’s not enough doom in the day
So they’ve got the doomsday plans set for when they bomb Iran and Jesus
comes back in a Dodge Ram
Jesus got the feeling, too
And I got the feeling that 2006 is going to be rough because these guys
will not give up power or their plan for anything not impeachment or any
other kind of fruit
And I think they’ve put us all on Death Row
But then I’m one of those people who dos not think that a truck is an
experience
And I don’t say “cool”
And I stop at stop signs
And I don’t like Burkas
And I don’t care about the welfare of Iraq
And I think fighting terrorism is always a priority and always has been
So I don’t got the feeling
But it doesn’t matter because
Brownie’s doin’ a heckuva job
And Tom Cruise is doin’ a heckuva job
And Oprah is doin’ a heckuva job
And 50 Cent and Michael Eisner and Rupert Murdoch and Madonna are doin’
a heckuva job
And maybe pretty soon a bunch of viruses will do a heckuva job and
Things will get kind of peaceful around this planet for a century or two
Or maybe, as George Carlin said, a comet will bail Earth out
Because he doesn’t really think humanity is doin’ a heckuva job
And he’s rooting for the insects because he figures they won’t invent
tennis shoes with lights in them and snot candy
But then, George doesn’t get the feeling
Get the feeling
He doesn’t get the Rush
Get the Rush
Get the Rush
Limbaugh
Limbaugh lower now
Limbaugh lower now
How low can you go?
---Charles Bogle |
