Of Haggis and Owl...and Other Things Foul

I've recently been called out by a fellow blogger to participate in writing a poem. For those who don't exactly keep up here (at the Montgomery Advertiser blog section), mgb12345, who is very fond of writing poems, suggested I write one. Now, truth be told...I am not at all poem-y.

And I don't really like the ones which don't rhyme.

To me, if there's no rhyme...there's no reason. A poem without rhyme seems like a very short story with random line breaks. And I seriously don't get it.

But I wrote a silly poem the other day and I wrote to mgb12345 and told her about it. She wanted me to share...and I haven't, until now.

But, first I must confess that this is not my first foray into the poem realm. Long, long time ago, one of my online friends recruited the efforts of her group of online friends to attempt to win a radio contest in Scottsdale, Arizona. The gist of this contest was this: write a "funny" poem about haggis and win. Oh, wait, there's more...this was for the Arizona Renaissance Festival and the prize would be 10 free tickets (a small fortune, let me tell you - even in those days) and the "honour" of being crowned King (or Queen) of the Festival and all sorts of miscellaneous things being bestowed upon them.

So, I...a sucker for nearly any contest and downright pathetic whenever anything remotely challenging or competitive is put into the mix...set about writing a poem. Then I sent it to my friend. She culled all the ones sent to her (yeah, try to get the money back from her now, Renaissance Faire people) and submitted the one she considered her best bet.

As luck would have it, it was mine. And as further luck would have it...we (and when I say "we" I mean "I") won. Without further ado...I present my winning poem...from about 10-15 years ago:


The Minstrel's Ode to Haggis

Now gather ye maidens for a tale from our land...
Of the Scottish fare we eat that has gotten out of hand.
It's bits of the sheep innards that no one would eat...
Then boiled it its own stomach and WE call it a "treat".

So drink up and be merry for soon we will dine...
On a boiled tummy bag...ugh wench, fast, more wine.
If you think living now seems sometimes too dismal...
Just think of the Renaissance with no Pepto-Bismol.

Even Shakespeare wrote of haggis in a play called MacBeth...
With three witches a-cooking, a fate worse than death.
Listen close, heed my words, 'tis true in Scotland we tell...
That the something "rotten in Denmark" was the haggis smell.


So, as previously stated, she won all sorts of things...one of which was a real live (er...dead) haggis which she, in undoubtedly a grog-like induced state, decided a keen idea would be to ship this thing to me in the middle of summer, in a box surrounded by dry ice.

Dry ice, it seems, isn't necessarily "dry" when the bag it is encased in ruptures. And it isn't so much "icy" then, either. So, when I got this soggy box in the blistering heat of an Alabama summer...the first thing I did was say, "Ooooh a box." The second thing I said was, "Okay, the FBI will surely be coming to my door as whatever is inside this head-sized box...smells like...a severed head."

Okay, I've never actually smelled a severed head sent UPS, but chances are it's not too far off the mark from what I received. I, being the inquisitive sort...and not knowing what was inside the box...but really, really curious at this point, opened it.

All I can say is that the smell a sealed box of rotting, spoiled, decaying haggis emits pales in comparison with an opened box of rotting, spoiled, decaying haggis. Words like "vile" and (puntastically apropos) "gut-wrenching" come to mind. Also every single mob movie I've ever seen came to mind...and the "ear scene" from David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" as well...but mainly because I had recently watched it just prior to opening the box.

Yes, smell and memory are closely related because of the brain's limbic system. "Limbic" looks and sounds remarkably similar to the word "iambic", which, ironically is poem-related. In a strange way it's all very poetic really, right?

And that brings us to present day.

The other day I stumbled somehow upon a site which makes and sells "Hello Kitty" wine.

My online friend loves all things "Hello Kitty" so I forwarded the URL on to her. After she asked me which wine I would recommend, I perused their write-ups and came across this "tasty tidbit" for their Pinot Nero: "Best served with red meat, rabbit, lamb, roast beef, 'Zampone and Cotechino', wild owl and hard cheese."

Now, I don't know about you...but it's been virtually years since I've had any "wild owl" and frankly, if I can't get my hands on some prime grade "Spotted Owl"...I'm just going to say a resounding "No" to the whole owl species.

In the wee hours of the morning (all things are much funnier in the wee hours of the morning...hence my timely posting of this blog) my friend then asked her friends (on her forum) if people routinely eat "wild owl" in Britain. I figured it was probably just a typo and they indeed meant "wild fowl"...but, you have to admit..."wild owl" just reeks of the things a parody poem is made of.

So, I made one.

For further clarification of this poem's impetus - I must relay that someone from England replied at the forum saying they knew "gypsies who would cook up roadkill hedgehogs". Again...the things "memorable" poems are made of.

Please keep in mind my poem is in many different meters (at least I'm consistent in my inconsistency)...and I vehemently try to offend everyone equally across the board. :) Also, in my dealings and dabbling into the "world of poems" I've found out that I'm apparently very fond of the word "Ode"...and have used it in the title in all those I've penned. (Yes, all two of them.)


An Ode to All Things Eaten

Wild owls and guinea fowls and hedgehogs found as roadkill

These are the things that Brits do eat...as tasty as a duckbill.

When Americans eat...we like fresh meat...

We hunt it then it's skinless.

But in the UK they're drunk all day...On cheap rosé and Guinness.

Here in the South they like their deer, turkeys and some gator...

They boil them up in a big ole pot with carrots and po-tater.

I'm from New Jersey...we don't kill there, we just go to the market...

We point at things behind the case -- then pay from out the pocket.

Now I won't grab a gun to kill some meal...or a shovel for on-road scraping...

I don't have a pig, or a chicken or a cow...and no sheep here for raping.

So while I sit down with a store-bought snack and log on my computer...

...at some given point I will be drunk...but not with a guy named "Cooter".

You all have mgb12345 to thank for this...please feel free to direct all complaints directly to her. ;)

Reading isn't always fundamental...

"Read the book!" "But did you read the book?" "I've read the book and..."

These are just a few of the comments I'll find when perusing the comments on the Internet Movie Database's (IMDb) forum whenever I go there...which happens a lot. My routine is pretty straightforward and simple: 1) Start to play movie; 2) Open up the IMDb to read who is playing which role; 3) Rejoice because I knew who the guy who says three words of dialogue was indeed in that episode of "Frasier" (or any other minute bit part) - gotta love IMDb; 4) As credits roll...look up trivia, goofs and comments for the film. I don't deviate from the routine...that's what a routine is there for...and in this case, deviating would be...well, devastating.

There is a thing out there in filmland known as "the spoiler"...and if you are no stranger to film-talk, you know exactly what I'm talking about...if you don't have a clue, read on...and if you do, read on as well. Sure, you will see many variations: "Spoiler alert" "Here be spoilers" "Warning: Spoilers"...but they essentially all mean the same: "Don't read any further if you haven't seen the film because we are about to give away an integral part of the film. Don't say we didn't warn you."

Most people are cautionary when you delve into the forays of filmdom...some aren't, for whatever reason they prattle off some little detail, oh, say...like the ending of the film and before you know it...you know the end of the film. I don't know about you, but I like to have my ending at the end where it belongs and not told to me by some guy who doesn't realize the courtesy of the spoiler...or who just wants to ruin it for everyone on purpose. Consequently, that's why I don't read any of the comments made by people until AFTER the film has ended...which brings me to my initial thought...

WHY do so many people insist on telling people that they should have "read the book"? "Oh, you'd understand why he did that if you woulda read the book"..."They made it clear why he did that IN THE BOOK"..."Well, did you read the book...because I read the book and they did it differently in the movie...I think it was better in the book because..."

If I wanted to read the book...I wouldn't have WATCHED THE DARN FILM! (This blog is for the Montgomery Advertiser's newspaper, so I am keeping content "clean"...otherwise I would have said "damn".)

And it seems to me that the people who even read the book aren't even 'on the same page', so to speak.

Let me elucidate a little...

I recently watched "No Country For Old Men"...and true to my own "rules"...I didn't read anything on the forum/trivia/goofs part of the IMDb...because of my reasons mentioned above. But after the film, (which, I won't give anything away here if you haven't seen it) I wanted to see if anyone had similar thoughts...like mine...so I went over to the comments portion.

Now, granted, there are intelligent, middle-of-the-road, and stupid people out there on the film forum as there are anywhere in society. Being in any one of these groups doesn't necessarily curtail anyone from speaking their mind...even when they fall into the third category and there is very little of it doing the talking. Be that here nor there...I welcome reading opinions across the board...I am not certain where I fit in - in my "tri-angle" of types I mentioned...I'd like to think I would fit in the upper-middle part, but I'm not very sure when I start reading comments. Sometimes I think I'm in the fourth realm I didn't mention..."total genius". Other times I am in the fifth: "total bumpkin".

For this film I felt kinda like a moth who had been spat back out of a cat's mouth, lost its wing dust, and was just spiralling blindly toward any light...but smacking into everything else in its path instead. I think I wasn't so much "going toward THE light" on this movie, because I clearly was NOT being illuminated by anything anyone said there.

People analyzed and sub-analyzed and even tho they all professed to reading the same exact book and hearing the same comments out of the Coen brothers' mouths...they all saw things differently. I couldn't help but think of that story of the blind men and the elephant...one feels the tail and thinks it is a rope, another feels the trunk and thinks it's a tree branch, etc. Each one "sees' the movie and interprets it differently...but no one is more right that the other. Only here...no one wants to admit they possibly could be wrong...or didn't see the "whole part".

What I did get was a whole lot of conjecture about a film that no one could see eye-to-eye on, altho the majority of the ones disagreeing with the others all claimed to have read the book. No one was on that "same page". "The nuances were lost"..."no they were there"..."no, they weren't there"..."they were in the book!" "I read the book"..."I read the book, too"..."I read the book better than you"..."I saw the film more clearly." "I talked to a guy who knew Joel Coen's barber's sister's friend...whose brother's cousin dated in him in high school...so I know better than you!" "Well, yeah...and uh...I read the book...TWICE...so there!"

It was pointless.

All I could deduce from the whole thing is that I didn't think Javier Bardem's character was creepy...but then again I never thought Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs" was "all that" either. For all out demented creepazoid I still think Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet" had them all beat...but then again, come to think of it, I never did read any comments about THAT film. Nor did I read the book...was there even a book? But...I have heard the song from Bobby Vinton...so let me tell you what I think David Lynch REALLY meant by that whole "ear" thing...

Hmmm....