[Jan D. Hodge]

Hmmm . . . Usually Sphereans are much too sharp to let something like this pass, but senior moment/brain freeze led me into an error in "Christmas 1776" [above]. Of course the Hessians bled at Trenton, not Camden

[Jamison W. Richardson]

Funkmaster Rick James

He tied'em up and tied'em down,
Trick-Rick enjoyed a streak
with Mary Jane and Funky Brown:
We miss ya, Super Freak.

I lower-cased the third line to emphasize the enjambement 'twixt L2 & 3.

Funkadelically yours,
JR!

[Spindleshanks]

Are Brits in yet?

TO A WREN

Sir Christopher of ancient days
was evidently quite a trier—
for even though he did amaze,
to greater heights he did aspire.

[Scotty Blake]

She sang him happy birthday,
that throaty threnody;
the song he sang was different -
it sucks to be a Kennedy.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Crisis

"Just who are you, who do not bleed,
to judge with so much brass?
'Fair weather patriots' indeed!
You surly Paine in the ass!"

[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited June 18, 2006).]

[Daniel Pereira]

Joshua A. Norton

Called Emperor by his peers and
beloved by the Chinese.
He died like his dog, "full of years and
honor...disease and fleas."

-Dan

[R E Bolick]

All right, time to get this train back on schedule.

Thanks, Henry, for the tip on rereading the Crosby quatrain. I like the edit.

Roger, In order to let the Belushi camp make a comeback, your Gilda entry generates the rule of "No more SNL females" -- "knew she/Belushi," geez.

Catherine -- Another nice Tubman, but if we don't stick to Calvin-ball rules, it's just sheer anarchy. Another entry, please!

A twofer from Mary! I like your choices.

For Sousa, shd the 4th line be shortened by removing "of"; or should LL2& 4 be "held listeners in their thrall" and "but lifted spirits of them all"?

John (adamsj) Adams -- I have to await a moderator's ruling on accepting your posting as you have only that post and no crits to your good name. But you picked a doozy. "A man of principle/ but no real convictions/ poor Orval flubbed it/ over race restrictions."

Ditto, Mr. JW Richardson. Get down with your own bad self and post some crits, good gawd, unh, Papa's got a brand new bag. And don't you be dragging me into the caps/non-caps argument -- see elsewhere on the Board for that in-joke.

Spindleshanks -- I think Sir Christopher should initiate the Commonwealth Quatrains!

Hi, Scotty -- If that was a threnody she sang, I hope they play it at my funeral to see if they get a rise out of me! Declined for diction.

All right, Hodge, it's duelling quills at six paces! You've insulted my favorite polemicist. "Had Paine not called them fair weather pats/ we'd have ministers of funny walks and hats." Okay, so that's a lopsided couplet. I guess size does matter. Grudgingly accepted, but the judges rule that a celebratory quatrain re good ole Tom shall be allowed (so there).

Ah, Emperor Norton, poor mongrels Lazarus and Bummer. Dan, I love the rhyme "peers and" with "years and"! I would have thought you'd jump for "decrees" in L2. No more San Franciscans with dogs by those names.

Only 21 more to go to 50. When we hit 50, shall we ask the Lariat for a bake-off?

Latest summary of rules:

Must be a deceased American of note.
No more blazers of the Cumberland Gap (Boone)
No more exterminators cum naturalists (Audubon)
No more Vice Presidents who never became President (Agnew)
No more Presidents who were generals with wooden teeth (Washington)
No more father-son President combos (Adamses)
No more South Carolinians (F. Marion)
No more early talkies stars (W.C. Fields)
No more Sixties pop stars (Tiny Tim)
No more cannibals (Alferd Packer)
No more clothing merchants. (Levis, sorry, Wanamaker, Macy, and Roebuck)
No more Vermont poets who couldn't decide between fire and ice (R. Frost)
No more beer brewers (J. Griesedieck)
No more White Mountain painters whose name begins with a "B" (A. Bierstadt, that leaves Thomas Cole et al.)
No more Afro-American female civil rights figures
No more suffragettes who made it onto coins (S.B. Anthony)
No more Texans who ran and lost as VP candidate (L. Bentsen)
No more leading female proponents of birth control (Sanger)
No more boxers who knocked out Archie Moore (Patterson)
No more boxers from Alabama (Louis)
No more lowercase poets (cummings)
No more generals from Michigan (Custer)
No more actors whose real name was Marion (Wayne)
No more Afro-American female emancipators (Tubman)
No more crooners who also acted in screen comedies (Crosby)
No more comics who stand on stage with a golf club (Hope)
No more female Saturday Night Live regulars.
No more march composers.
No more drowned trans-pacific pilots.
No more San Franciscans with dogs named Lazarus and Bummer.

Relatives by blood or marriage of previously accepted figures are allowed.
No changes to the subject of previous submissions.
Edits to meter, rhyme, diction, and punctuation allowed.
Multiple submissions allowed.
Two quatrains on the same subject will be allowed if submitted by outislanders within 20 minutes of each other.
Hodge rule: two subjects, two ballad meter quatrains, linked by rhyme scheme, any enjambment of the two quatrains must be such that the first ends grammatically and the next starts grammatically without using conjunctions.

ToC so far:

Adams, J.J. & Adams, J.Q.
Agnew, S.
Anthony, Susan B.
Audubon, J.J.
Bentsen, Lloyd
Bierstadt, A
Boone, D.
Crosby, Bing
cummings, e.e.
Custer, G.A.
Earhart, Amelia
Fields, W.C.
Frost, R.
Griesedieck, J.
Hope, Bob
Khaury, Herbert Buckingham (aka Tiny Tim; tentative)
Louis, Joe (ranked most heartwrenching so far)
Marion, Francis
Norton, Joshua A. (Emperor)
Packer, Alferd (ranked funniest so far)
Paine, Thomas (but a counterbalancing entry is allowed!)
Parks, Rosa
Patterson, Floyd
Radner, Gilda
Sanger, Margaret
Sousa, John Philip
Strauss brothers (Levis, not waltzes)
Tubman, Harriet
Washington, George
Wayne, John


Cheers,



------------------
BobB

[Jan D. Hodge]

Recurring Paine

These are the times that try <u>my</u> soul.
I rouse the mob for the cause
and some dumb blowhards scorn my role--
foul wind from asses' jaws.

[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited June 20, 2006).]

[Mary Moore]

William Morton was the first to use
ether for an operation.
Others before him had passed gas
but not as their vocation.

[Kimberlee Adams]

Please be gentle with me, it's my first post.

Kenneth Lay

Investors conned:
life savings gone.
Then Kenneth died.
Justice denied?