Screen Time

[vmh]

So good to see you here. Nice referencing you have going on here.

I see IRN BRU everywhere now that I am trying to do Duolingo's Gaelic. I even have a source for it here where I live.

You capture Fonzie's behavior well, at the time he was a breath of fresh air. A bad boy who really wasn't. And Bewitched, a good girl, who really wasn't!

Vicky

[Gabrielle]

Feeling a bit woebegone after Bewitched.The ending took me by surprise. You've compressed so much information and emotion into these 6 short lines. Last three lines are stunning.

[JFN]

Rob, I must admit I gave up on HIMYM as I felt it dragged on too long. I like the references though, and the idea of projecting your own past and future through the lens. with the added benefits of canned laughter and selective camera angles.

On to Family Guy. When I’m being realistic, I use the word animation really made me smile. The ending reads true enough too.

Breaking Fonzie's character down in such a way works really well to show the nonsense of it all. There are some well placed line breaks towards the end too.

Bewitched seems an apt title for both the show and the poem. The last stanza works really well to marry the reality and the fiction. I'm probably a little unusual for my age (born 1983) in that as a child/teenager, and still today, I absolutely loved watching Bewitched, Charlie's Angels, The Good Life etc. (my aim remains to live like Tom & Barbara). I'm hoping there may be a few more from this era on the way.

Keep well,

John

[romac1]

Vicky, Gabrielle, JFN - thanks. And I should cover shows from a variety of eras. I obviously spend too much time watching sitcoms on TV...

Did people beyond the UK and Ireland get Father Ted on their TV screens? This link and the first three or four clips should give you the general idea, if not - https://metro.co.uk/2015/04/21/fathe...omedy-5122267/ . You'll get a good laugh from them, I hope, if nothing else.

Father Ted

God was a big fan of Father Ted, according to the Blue Order
of Revisionist Arcanity. Laughter shook heaven like a sauce bottle
when Bishop Brennan was kicked in the arse, when the priests
laid siege to the biggest lingerie department in Ireland, when
Mrs Doyle poured out the Unholy Spirit from a sacrificial teapot.

Ted’s theology of God was a bovine discipline: the plastic cows
on the desk were small, the cows in the fields were far away.
He set Father Dougal the ultimate dialectical conundrum.
Was God small or far away? Did God’s essential mystery
meet its measure in dimension or distance? “That would be

an ecumenical matter,” I’d suggest, followed by “Drink! Feck!
Girls! Down with this sort of thing!” Please try to understand
I’m a serial absconder from solemn business. I’ve a tendency
to underegg an omelette, to elucidate the void as if it didn’t
exist, to walk the via negativa with SMART goals in my head.

[romac1]

You don't ever have to have seen The Inbetweeners to understand this poem, as the poem explains it all - sort of.

The Inbetweeners

They give five idioms to the English language:
clunge, buswanker, bumder, briefcase wanker, gash.
Garage workers throw them into a river and steal
their clothes. They beat a fish to death for no reason.

They berate a group of Down Syndrome teenagers.
They smack a paraplegic girl’s head with a frisbee.
They crawl through dogshit to crash a popular girl’s
birthday party. They soil underwear during exams.

They are beaten up by a 12-year-old. They destroy
daffodils and stamp on a car bonnet. They wear
a tramp’s urine-soaked shoes to a London club.
They stuff wigs down pants to impress older girls.

They carry a car door round a funfair for hours.
They get into bed with their girlfriends, punch
their cocks and shout “Work!” They cover up
the cocks with socks on a rowboat off Dorset.

They wet a bed and make indecent proposals
to phlegmatic Dutch girls. They let a car run
into a lake. They throw blankets over boys
in wheelchairs with serious kidney diseases.

They jack off in a nursing home and shake
hands with the warden. They smoke teabags
when there is no puff. They eat a bonsai tree.
They hide in a toilet and wait for their mums.

*

A few excerpts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_QhH33Lfyo

[Sorella]

Rob,
I too watched a lot of British sitcoms in the late 70's, 80's and early 90's, including Father Ted. Parents-in-law taped them and sent them across the North Sea! Seen a few American ones too. No better source of the verncular and keeping up with the mores of the period while laughing.
You brought Father Ted to life vividly!
Bewitched is sweet.
I get a good feel for the ones I missed in your excellent takes. Keep it up!

Sorella

[romac1]

Thanks, Sorella. The research for these poems is always good fun! And now for today's poem...

Schitt’s Creek

We’ve all been there, the last place on earth you think
you want to end up, except there are compensations
in self-denial: opportunities for spiritual confabulation
you won’t find in quarantine or KFC, the few beauty spots
untouristed and positively heuristic: the veterinary clinic
operates on allergies and dogcombs lice from perfectly
coiffed heads; an abandoned mall harbours a startling
little Tannenbaum; offices pop up on garage basement
parking-spaces, where work is a theory with furniture;
And, on sunny days, joyous frippets and dewdroppers
pack the fallow fields with juvinessence and nimble
callipygian backsides. You can’t repress your sexuality
but call it anything you want – raise your swords!
Cut through the pettifogger bombilation manifested
elsewhere as populist absurdity on baseball caps
and shout “Eeew!” in unison at the unasinous
bond between voter and president. His half-assed
ultracrepitude dissolves in this tributary of the soul:
Schitt’s Creek, a town beyond jurisdiction, welcomes
you to the Rosebud Motel’s box-spring single beds,
gigantic muffin bowls and glee-ridden chanteuses
like human alarms. We hope you enjoy your stay.

*

If anyone is unclear on the meaning of some of the words in this poem, you'll find most of the answers here! :-) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCFndZFbyEI

[drumpf]

Schitt's Creek

Outside of punctuation missing, and this idea that none of this is reality, the last four lines resolves my anxiety, in that this is heuristic to the reality of what's occurring. For example, office pop ups in basements is a little hard to fathom, but I can imagine offices in bedrooms here in NYC more relevant, not because there are basements, but because I cannot imagine a makeshift office in a basement, being better than a desk in the bedroom or another room.

[Dunc]

Rob

Bewitched and twitching noses ─ yup, it's doubtless still out there somewhere, maybe at 3am but out there. And Dick York as the perpetually rescued Darrin. Who said good things come to an end?

Father Ted and I may have passed briefly but we never established a dialogue, so I'm pleased to have a refresher course.

Your Inbetweeners sound ─ ahm ─ hilarious? Oigh.

Goodness, there really is a program called Schitt's Creek! If ever a name was a warning, you leave no doubt on the matter.

Lucky we're just onlookers!

Regards / Dunc

[new leaf]

What a fun way to binge series through NaPo! Some references I know, some I don't, but even for those where I can't see the picture, the ekphrastic works because of the attention to detail and the connections to the lives of N and the reader that you have built. The last is a wordfest, and I thank you for the explicatory clip. (I have to throw up a red flag on juvinessence; I think she must have said juvenescence.)

Looking forward to more pop culture à la Rob.

[Jee Leong]

Rob, there's a joyous irreverence in these poems that's very appealing. Lots of images to juggle and why not, with every installment bringing a new plot with the same characters. The rapid shifts between high-brow and demotic are fun. I'd love to visit a town that's beyond jurisdiction.

[romac1]

drumpf, Dunc, new leaf, Jee - Thanks for reading and commenting! Dunc, Schitt's Creek is honestly one of the best pieces of TV in the last decade, despite the name. It really is brilliant. And now from the sublime to the ridiculous!

Beavis and Butthead

The general idea you can discern
from few words: Pantera are cool,
Kate Bush sucks, Michael Bolton has fallen
from someone’s butt. It is presidential
how they glory in limitation without
seeing it, how truth feels like an accident
you hear whispered after a street
is hosed down, without a monument.

He grunts from the sofa like an orange
piglet: Pavement are weak and Kate
is stupid; Michael Stipe has fallen
for the fake news media. He’ll arrange
a porky pie that malaria vaccine in the butt
will make America great again.

[M]

Ridiculously realistic, sadly hilarious. Beavis and Butthead made me laugh out loud at my desk. Well, more like a snort. "grunts from the sofa like an orange piglet" - that's so gross (and fitting).

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

romac1

Bewitched - Elizabeth Montgomery was beautiful lady, but I was more of a Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie) fan. I'm not sure what the 1986 reference is about. I thought at first that if might refer to her death, but she died in 1995.

Father Ted - this is one that I've heard of but have never seen, but I really like the poem. I like Ted's theology on

"Was God small or far away? Did God’s essential mystery
meet its measure in dimension or distance?"

Good stuff.

The Inbetweeners - as you said, pretty self-explanatory

Schitt’s Creek - never heard of the show, but I was able to follow the poem well enough, despite the fair number of unusual ( but well-chosen) words (which just added to the interest)

Beavis and Butthead - this goes back, silly and fun turned into political commentary, well done

Keep writing!

BrianIs AtYou

[romac1]

Thanks M and Brian. The 1986 reference is to do with the psychology trainee - juxtaposing reality and TV - just to confuse you (and everyone else)!
Today, I'm on The Office. The UK version. I haven't seen the U.S. version except in small excerpts, but I have a sense that the UK version is far grittier.

The Office

A list of my main achievements includes bespoke
out-of-office answerphone invective, the ability
to hide a cheeseboard before a door swings open
and a perfect jelly recipe to sheathe a stapler.

I’m applying for this post because I’m deeply in love
with the intern you’ve got the hots for, the one who
likes to mix coffee mugs and computers, and I know
you frown on relationships within the workplace.

Although I lack charisma and have the spontaneity
of a talking Ken or sock puppet in a plastercast,
I do not look like a Fisher Price Man or a pancake
print Jesus, and can recite Insta poetry on demand.

I believe I will bond well with Keith from accounts.
I will popularise inflatable birthday phalluses
and institute the previously uncharted ideas
of Bishop Muzorewa within a training regime.

David Brent, you are the world’s least ideal boss
and yet, carried in each of us, your human foibles
are spreading through the world like a Russian bot.
If I come to work for you, I am working for myself.

We’ve all been told, on a first date, to “stop talking
about my dead mother’s breasts!” We are all you,
knowing the self only in song, accompanied by
sweet fantasy, rock star delusion, acoustic guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGaoLs6F4ro