Poetry for Vadney

A new parody from a new Canadian

2008-07-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

I received this parody from Scott Horne on 16 June. The original can be viewed here (see below), about three-quarters of the way down (Song 49, “THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE”). There was some discussion about whether it should be published, but we finally decided to go ahead with it. I’s a bit adult in its content, and—alas!—the events described in the last two stanzas remain in the realm of wishful thinking. But I live in hope that one day there really will be “Justice for Vadney”!

By way of explanation, readers are reminded that the Vadney has been promising since 23 December 2007 to post the depositions from his monumentally unsuccessful defamation suit against his neighbours. Of course, he has not kept his word; I can only conclude that his cosmetic enhancements are taking longer than he anticipated. For the enjoyment of the parody, you need to know that, in those depositions, one of the defendants revealed certain incidents involving the Vadney. One involved a barbecue at which he apparently thought his partner was rather too slow at bringing the chairs, and urged him to hurry up, with the threat “I’ll stick my big red dick up your ass!” Another incident involved his refusing, in a restaurant, to sit next to a black couple, referring to them as “niggers”. Given this propensity to racist abuse, it is perhaps not surprising that he is also reported, in the depositions, as having used the word “spics”.

Telt Hoo-Auld, wha’s nathing but trouble,
Tae his pairtner, when lawn chairs were sparse:
“Bring thae damn chairs oot here on the double,
Or get ma big red dick up yer erse!”

The judge Farrell he saucht tae replace
An his ain brand o “juistice” enforce:
Ilka “nigger” an “spic” he’d disgrace,
Sticking a big red dick up thir erse.

Sae he ran his election campaign,
But the numbers could hairdly be worse:
Six-an-ten votes in aa, plus the ane
Wha gets his big red dick up the erse.

He tuik aa his nechbours tae court;
’Twas a monstrous juridical farce.
Ane defender his words did report:
“Get ma big red dick up yer erse!”

Hoo-Auld ranted an rav’d fower days
In cant nae grammarian could parse.
The dismissal o his hopeless case
Stung like a big red dick up his erse.

By an by the same court did arraign
Him on charges of contempt and worse:
Fraud, harassment, an—ay—his refrain:
“Get ma big red dick up yer erse!”

In gaol fast confin’d frae the court,
Sune the prison-bitch fand it most harsh
Tae be the butt-end o thir sport,
Taking big red dicks up his erse.

FOOTNOTE:

The title page of the collection describes it as follows:

THE MERRY MUSES

OF

CALEDONIA;

A Collection of

FAVOURITE SCOTS SONGS
Ancient and Modern
Selected for Use of the
CROCHALLAN FENCIBLES

by

ROBERT BURNS

Parodies by Scott Horne

2008-06-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

With apologies to A E Housman:

When he was sev'n-and-fifty,
A wise man told him true:
"The people you're harassing
Will mop the floor with you.
Prevailing in that lawsuit?
Your chance not even slim."
But he was sev'n-and-fifty:
No use to talk to him.

Four days wee Perry Mason
And witnesses were heard;
Then, with a judgement summary,
The court dismissed the turd.
And after all this hassle,
The world can hardly wait
To see what sort of asshole
He'll be at fifty-eight.

With apologies to Wordsworth—not that he deserves them:

He dwells among th' Historic ways
In quaint New Baltimore:
A fraud whom there are none to praise
But plenty to abhor.

Annoying, this persistent weed
Unhidden from the eye!
Foul as his mop, when tinted 'tis
With Day-Glo orange dye.

He lives contemn'd, and few do care
Or bother to discuss;
But were he in his grave, then—O!
The difference to us!

OK, one more (pace Byron):

So, we'll go no more a-suing
For lakhs and crores untold,
Though our mouth cease not crap-spewing
And our cheek be ne'er so bold.

For ego outstrips our sense,
As our nerve governs our brain;
And our pride must falter hence,
And gall itself abstain.

Though the courts be made for suing
And our purse be cobweb-pack'd,
Still our suits we'll stop renewing
And end our cheesy act.

And now one adapted from Horace:

Indecor vitae scelerisque plenus
valde eget Mauris iaculis et arcu
et venenatis gravida sagittis
iste pharetra.

Welcome to the new blog

2008-06-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

Harold William Vadney III is an ungrateful little puppy. Not only have I created a blog devoted to mitigating the effects of his mythomania, but I have even set up one especially devoted to his spiritual guidance in the form of Biblical quotations, and still he doesn’t thank me..

But, even as he heaps shit on me, I continue undeterred. Recently, my colleague Scott Horne has produced some fine parodies of well-known poems for the Vadney’s enlightenment and guidance, published as comments on my main Vadney blog. They were so impressive that I decided not to compete, but rather to write a straight and more or less original ballad in honour of the Vadney, to kick off a new poetry blog devoted, once again, to the Vadney. In the event, Scott contributed a few stanzas (8, 9, 11) to the ballad, and suggested some improvements to two others (15, 28) as well. So here it is. A combined effort.

The Ballad of Harold William Vadney III

The Vadney puffed his little chest,
Said “I’m a fine translator!
Just call on me; forget the rest;
For noöne could be greater.

I know four tongues extremely well,
Though English isn’t one:
In English I can’t read or spell,
And grammar I have none.

I’m a Fellow of the RSA,
A pukka British club,
Where high achievers talk and play,
And eat fine British grub.

I was elected long ago,
Though I’m not on their list.
But that’s their problem: they don’t know
Just quite how much they’ve missed.

The Institute of Linguists, well,
They once made me a member:
Though I remind the IoL,
It seems they can’t remember.

I joined the army at 22;
With guns I was a hero.
The chance of using them, I knew,
Was very close to zero.

For I signed up in ’72,
Just as the war was ending,
And no more troops to ’Nam the U.
S.A. it would be sending.

My Commendation Medal is
Adorned with leaves of oak—
Well, so it was, or may have been;
The leaves they did revoke.

In valour, few of Sparta’s men
Could call themselves my betters:
Takes guts to be clerk typist when
You don't know all the letters.

I gained a host of high degrees
And so great is the fame
Of all my universities
That I can’t spell their name.

In pharmacy I forged my way
And started at the top:
I marvel at what one today
Can do with Photoshop.

There’s one thing that I cannot bear:
I can’t stand to be mocked or
Reviled for that white coat I wear
Bearing the title ‘doctor’.

A physician I would like to be;
And held a PhD
From ‘UNY/UL/UV’,
Or maybe that was three.

But sadly this achievement for
Deletion it was fated,
When my CV would be once more
For ‘accuracy’ updated.

The selfsame fate that took away
My medical degree
And later knocked out my MA
Destroyed my PhD.”

The Vadney sighed and took a rest
From his intense jobation,
But then once more he puffed his chest,
Resuming his oration.

“I’ve had a gutful of these folk
With nothing more to do
Than go through all the words I’ve spoke
To check if they are true.

But all their cunning aye backfires;
For they refuse to see
That I can turn them into liars
By ‘updating’ my CV.

Then I can sue them in a court
Of civil jurisdiction,
For not accepting as they ought
As truth my works of fiction.

When I was running to be judge
In my quaint rural town,
My neighbours said I had a grudge
And tried to run me down.

Of course I launched a libel suit
For fifty million bucks.
It only failed to bear such fruit
’Cause Judge Teresi sucks.

But still I got to waste their time
And posture, rant and rave
With arguments not worth a dime;
Attention I did crave.

When in the end the judge did find
That they had told the truth
(So I had lied), I thanked him kind
Though piercing tongue with tooth.

For I know more about the law
Than any high-powered jurist;
Though I’m a clapped-out two-bit whore,
My wisdom is the purest.

These guys don’t know the Vadney Act,
My very own decree,
Which makes all questions, law or fact,
Decidable by me.”

By now he was so puffed and bloated,
Like some exotic toad,
That in my mind a dread thought floated:
“Perhaps he will explode.”

Explode he did, a moment later,
Bullshit and tripe went flying,
And in the ground was formed a crater;
Though not a soul was crying.

You’d need a thousand garbage cans
To clean up every bit;
I wonder at so small a man’s
Containing so much shit.

I hope you enjoyed that. I’ll be copying Scott’s parodies here soon, and there may even be some more on the way.