This rant would be boring if I did it too much, but the honors for this week were handed out for one of my favorite contests: Write a couplet or short rhyme about anyone who died in the previous year. I got one lousy honorable mention from the following, and it is among the more obscure and least funny.
I did place high in this contest a few years ago for noting Terry Schiavo’s passing thusly:
Bill Frist thought he could diagnose better,
Making you wonder who was brain deader.
In a few hours, one of the following bon mots will have been in print. See if you can figure out which lame entry The Empress (sole judge) of the contest thought was funniest. And feel free to offer your own favorites. And I promise not to rant too much on this subject again.
Eartha Kitt
New Faces of ’52 -- the best one, maybe
Eartha Kitt’s held up till she purred “adieu, baby”
Eartha Kitt and Heath Ledger
Gained fame through really mem’rable disguises
Joker and Catwoman met their demises
Harold Pinter
Now that the word miser Harold Pinter is dead
Maybe he thinks there’s more to have been said
Tim Russert
You hosted your share of morons and clowns
Who left moaning, “Sunday morning came down”
W. Mark Felt
Hal Halbrook was fine but consider Ray Liotta
For the remake as Woodward and Bernstein’s Deep Throata
W. Mark Felt
His suspicions were sorely inchoate
Till Woodward met Mark Felt, as Deep Throate
Paul Newman
Hollywood suffered a terrible loss
And we, our popcorn and spaghetti sauce
Paul Newman
He lived his life so calmly and placidly
Not like the cliff-diving Butch Cassidly
Irvine Robbins
When ice cream gets your palate throbbin’,
Give scoops of thanks to Irvine Robbins
Irvine Robbins
Thirty-one flavors that no one hates
From Rocky Road now to “pearly gates.”
Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Was a pisher
Mickey Vernon
Mickey Vernon, a Nat, played with grace
For teams that couldn’t get past third base
Killer Kowalski
A gentle man of Polish extraction
Killer Kowalski put men in traction
Jim McKay
(A postlife interview)
“So what has your life been about, Jim? Pull up a seat!”
Said McKay: “Thrill of vict’ry – you know the rest, Saint Pete.”
Sir Edmund Hillary
“Why? asked St. Peter as he pulled up a chair.
“Simple” replied Edmund: “Because it was there.”
Georgia Frontiere
The football players paid by Frontiere
Wound up on the field on their derrieres
Genuine Risk
Genuine Risk burned up the Churchill Downs course
But she died of old age, not hung like a horse.
Johnny Podres
Treasure of the Sierra Madres
Can’t compare to the Dodgers Podres
Johnny Podres
Boys of Summer fans everywhere shed a tear
‘Cause Podres can no longer “Wait ‘til next year”
Sammy Baugh
If he played for Joe Gibbs, Mr. Sammy Baugh
Would be asked before punting to run a draw.
Mr. Blackwell
You were so bitchy ‘bout hemlines and busts
How do you look now in ashes and dust?
George Carlin
Carlin’s words could make you pucker
How we’ll miss that *&$#*$*%!&#!
George Carlin
His famous words they numbered seven
The same as minutes in a chukker
He dissed religion, God and Heaven
Said St. Pete: “Get lost, *&$#*$*%!&#!”
Jesse Helms
That sound Obama will hear for a spell
Is Jesse Helms turning over in hell
John Stewart, Nick Reynolds
Two of the Kingston Trio have died;
Join Charlie on an eternal ride
John Stewart, Nick Reynolds
Now they’ll be able to see
Their cousins in Roxbury
Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider, a character actor of note,
Crossing over, he asked for a bigger boat
Charlton Heston
For Charlton Heston, no “ifs,” “buts” or “ands”
They pried his gun from his cold dead hands
Charlton Heston
Parting the Red Sea, he made one of his stands
The last when they parted the gun from his hands
Larry Harmon
Chicagoan Larry Harmon, has died
He was Bozo, thus Senate-qualified
Mildred Loving
Won a court case that changed a nation
Made archaic “miscegenation”
Rocky Aoki
The founder of Benihana changed lives
Including those who survived flying knives
James Bevel
Bevel was close when King parted the waters
Sadly, though, he was too close to his daughters.
Albert Hofmann
Discoverer of lysergic acid diethylamide
Is not even aware that in two-thousand-and-eight he died
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