The Poetry of Funkytown

Romani Ite Domum
by Eustace Lufgren

Cantankerous wantons will clog the back door
No question they're after what you've got in store
Not a drop of remorse as they ravage the scene
And greedily labour to extract your spleen

Salvaged jalopies don't go for much bread
Better off in the frypan, least, that's what he said
Would you look me in the eyes and tell me that I'm real?
Tell me, how could you smile so warmly as I pillage and steal?

(And Don't You Care?)
Ooh baby, they gotta take it all away...
(Why Not Another Day?)
No honey, it's just got to be this way...
Don't shudder when they do their job, they're doing as they should
Please listen when I tell you that this all works out for good
Romani...Ite...Domum.

There'll come a day when you know you've paid your dues
And the snakes won't have a single word to say
You'll have cleared the balance on those ruby-studded shoes
And noone can take them away
No, not a soul could ever take those away

Eustace's most recent composition. Interesting to note the obscure Pythonisms, that I was hardly aware of. Romani Ite Domum will obviously strike a note of recollection with Life of Brian fans, and the first verse and the chorus have an almost horrific reference to (from The Meaning of Life) Live Organ Transplants. And oh, those ruby studded shoes. The mere words bring to mind a thousand Donald Fagen-isms. Next song:

Dance of the Glitterati
by Eustace Lufgren

That Harvey Daniels never had a past to face
He slunk away in sullen disgrace
Ripe with tonic musings of the tertiary world
A cognoscenti's mind unfurled

Break out the Chesters and tell it once more
Give them no quarter, this time as before
They'd love to see you squirm and writhe in karmic agony
But you'll spoonfeed them their words one by one

Loot the masses with an aptly seedy scheme
We'll choke back the urge to scream
Keep up that smile lest you fall from off your throne
They'll not cast you any bones

The jackals set upon him in the blink of an eye
Left him for dead and scurried on by
He never got the chance to say all that he meant to say
But we've not lost yet the writing on the wall

A frightful specter of a distant tet-a-tet
A charming smirk at fate
A dismal mantra chanted up into the sky
We're much too old to die

Break out the Chesters and tell it once more
Give them no quarter, this time as before
They'd love to see you squirm and writhe in karmic agony
But you'll spoonfeed them their words one by one

Break out the Chesters, eh? Dig deep into the Donald Fagen library, and you find the Chesterfield Kings and of course, Your Gold Teeth. The shocking thing I noted was just how accidentally poignant the last verse was, despite the fact that I errr Eustace has become the only songwriter other than Eric Idle (again, whats with the Pythons?) to rhyme "tet-a-tet" with "fate", or probably to even use "tet-a-tet" in a song. But anyway, the "dismal mantra" is what interests me..."we're much too old to die". An aging populace, increasing power of medicine, increasing cost of medicine, and a growing socialist fervor to demand a "right" to be taken care of by taxpayers. It's much like the Numenoreans (stay with me Tolkien geeks) who, as they lived longer lives, became more obsessed with death and would do anything to extend their miserable, unhappy lives on Earth (or Arda, if you will) just a few seconds more. I don't mean to start an age-war, but there is something about the AARP and its ilk, the frantic, easily manipulated bloc of fear-driven voters who seek only to ensure that the government (read: people who work and pay taxes) will spare no expense in artificially extending their lives with whatever drugs may be available. I thought we were supposed to Just Say No? Ahh, these mixed messages... Anyway. Oh my LORD!!!!! AARP....AR-P...Ar-Pharazon!!! The last king of Numenor who drove his ships to the undying lands to wrest immortality from the Valar!!! It makes all the sense in the world!!!

I'll bypass Gorgonzola for now. It is the pinnacle of Eustace crappery, though I do love it so.

16 hours or so until 70-291 reckoning time. MCSA exam number two. 70-290 already defeated me soundly, but we are regrouping and shall swarm back and retake the battlements before dawn.

As some of you may know, beverage tasting/reviewing is quite a hobby of mine...although sometimes its gotten to the point (recently, thats why I'm posting) that I would rather just not worry about reviews and enjoy (a beer, a brandy, a whisky, whatever the case may be) the drink without giving thought to nose, palate, body, finish, etc. The other side of me though, which is practically preparing to write a book on the subject, sees it as lost opportunity. But while on the subject, let me sing the virtues of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot 2005...while I've got a bottle in my basement cellaring to tame its intense hoppiness, I've enjoyed several bottles of this Californian barleywine so far, and I have to say it is easily one of the best beer aromas I've ever run into. The taste is a bit on the overly bitter side (especially for a barley wine, which should have a thick malt element to offset the bitterness), but not too bad, and its entirely justified by that rapturous nose. Even a week-old bottlecap smelled magnificent!