Final Project: Parody Medley

Song 1. Bailey’s Café (Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega)

I am sitting

In the evening

At the café

On the corner

I am waiting

At the counter

For Bailey

To serve the hash

And he sets it

Steaming hot on

The counter

Here before me

But he seems to

Be distracted

By the woman

Coming in

“It is always

Nice to see you”

Says Bailey

Behind the counter

To the woman

Who has come in

She is shaking

And hung-over

And I look

The other way

As the drunk Sadie

Requests “Tea, please”

I’m pretending

Not to see her

And instead

I eat the hash

I open

Up the paper

There’s a story

Of a floozy

Who had cried

While she was divorced

She was no one

I had heard of

And I’m turning

To the horoscope

And looking

For the funnies

And I’m feeling

Someone watching me

And so

I raise my head

There’s a woman

On the outside

She is pretty

Does she see me?

No she does not

Really see me

Cause she sees

Her own reflection

And I’m trying

Not to notice

That she’s hitching

Up her skirt

And while she’s

Tracing her facial scar

Her hair

Has gotten wet

Oh this rain

It will continue

Through the evening

As I’m listening

To the bells

Of the cathedral

I am thinking

Of Miss Eve

And how she quotes the Bible

Even better than

Sister Carrie can

And I finish up my dinner

And I know I’ll never leave

Song 2. Woman Warrior (Iron Man by Black Sabbath)

Woman warrior

Is she Fa Mulan?

Taken by birds, she has gone

To a sacred place

Where an old hut is time and space

She has been deemed dead

By her parents full of dread

She is married still

To a man who follows her will

She was trained to kill

On a mountain full of thrill

Then she traveled down

From the mountain she had found

Everyone wants her

While she stares at the world

Planning her vengeance

That she will soon unfold

Now the time is here

For Fa Mulan to spread fear

Vengeance from the grave

Kills the people who didn’t behave

Everyone wants her

So they turn their heads

An army helps her

While she gets her revenge

Heavy armor of gold

Hides her baby in the mold

Try and run as fast as you can

Fa Mulan strikes again!

Song 3. The Sunset Limited (Breathe Me by Sia)

Help, I have done it again

I have been here many times before

Tried to kill myself today

And, the worst part is there’s only death to blame

Be my friend

Dear Black, keep me here

At your place

I hate death

I’m needy

Warm me up

With your hospitality

Ouch I have lost myself again

Near the Sunset Limited, on my way

To commute terminally

I’ve found education and I feel unsafe

Be my friend

Dear Black, keep me here

At your place

I fear death

I’m needy

Warm me up

With your hospitality

Be my friend

Dear Black, keep me here

At your place

I hate death

I’m needy

Warm me up

With your hospitality

Song 4. The Hunger Games (Survivor by Destiny’s Child)

Now that I survived the games

I’m so much better

Rise above authority, yes

I am stronger

Livin’ in my hard earned house, yes

I am richer

I hope you liked the berry incident

I laughed harder

You thought I wouldn’t learn from this game

But I’m wiser

Thought that I’d be helpless in the arena

But I’m smarter

You thought that I’d be stressed out there

Well, yes, I was

You thought I wouldn’t sell without you

Multiple sponsors

I’m a survivor

I’m not gon give up

I’m not gon stop WHAT?!

I’m gon work harder

I’m a survivor

I’m gonna make it

I will survive WHAT?!

Keep on survivin’

CHORUS

You thought I would die in the end

But I’m inhalin’

You thought I couldn’t see through your traps

I’ve got perfect vision

You thought I couldn’t last without help

That may be true

You thought I would die without medicine

That is a correct assumption

You know that I would have failed without Peeta

Now we are on top

You thought it would be over by now

But it won’t stop

Thought that I would self destruct

But I’m still here

Even in my years to come

I’m still gon be here

CHORUS X2

I will never wish you the best

Never pray you are blessed

I will bring you stress, take all your success and your happiness

I’m better than that

I’m not gon blast you on the radio

I’m better than that

You had better stay away from my family

I’m better than that

I’m not gon hate on you in my interview

I’m better than that

No I’m not gon compromise my family’s safety

You know that I am better than that

Because my papa raised me better than that!

CHORUS X2

After all of the darkness and killings

Soon comes my victory

If I surround myself with dangerous things

I’ll gain prosperity

CHORUS, WHAT?!

Song 5. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammer)

I’ve been waiting on the sunset

Powwow Tavern on my mindset

I can’t deny my thirst is high

Beer is higher than my income

Incomes bread crumbs

I’ve been using humor to survive

The glow that the sun gets

Right around sunset

Helps me realize

The road is just a thumb away

Reverse your truck and drive

You are gonna turn out fine

Oh, you turn out fine

Fine, oh, you turn out fine

But you gotta keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down, yah-hey

You gotta keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down, yah-hey

I know it’s hard, know it’s hard

To remember sometimes

But you gotta keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down, yah-hey

I’ve got my hands in my pockets

Kicking these rocks

It’s kinda hard to hitchhike down this road

I’m starting to buy Thunderbird Wine

Alcohol messes with judgment in my mind

I’m seeing all the angles, vision getting tangled

I start to become kind

Nicer than usual

Is it all worth it?

Am I gonna turn out fine?

Oh, I’ll go to A.A.

Fine, oh I will turn out fine

CHORUS

You’re only sober after beer

The neon signs will always light again

It’s a circle, circling

Around again, it goes around again

I said,

You’re only sober after beer

The neon signs will always light again

It’s a circle, circling

Around again, it goes around

CHORUS

Keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down, yah-hey

Keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down, yah-hey

Keep your head up, oh

And you can let your braids down

I said ohhh, ya-hey-wi-yo, ya-hey-wi-yo

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Survival = Anger x Imagination. Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation.

            A theme of survival emerges in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. A twenty-first century Indian faces poverty, poor government regulation, and disease; the list goes on and on. The American Indians utilize humor as a coping device for survival and healing.

            Many Indians live in HUD houses and receive commodity food; the life of the poor. Thomas Builds-the-Fire is one of these Indians. “‘Goddamn it, Thomas,’ Junior yelled. ‘How come your fridge is always fucking empty?’ Thomas walked over to the refrigerator, saw it was empty, and then sat down inside. ‘There,’ Thomas said. ‘It ain’t empty no more.’” (12) Instead of admitting that the commodity food supply was too short to live on, Thomas jokingly fills his fridge with himself.

            Poverty continues to flourish outside of the HUD houses and in the street. The red light on a traffic signal is broken on the reservation. “‘Shit, they better fix it. Might cause an accident.’ We both looked at each other, looked at the traffic signal, knew that about only one car an hour passed by, and laughed our asses off.” (48) The BIA should fix the traffic light, but they clearly don’t give a damn, because it remains broken for summers to come.

Where do I go from here?

             Another depressing situation on the reservation is disease. Diabetes is common among Indians, but a special case of tumors causes Jimmy Many-Horses to rely on comedy in order to lighten his condition and soon-to-be death. “‘Jesus,’ I said to my attending physician. ‘A few more zaps and I’ll be Superman.’ ‘Really?’ the doctor said. ‘I never realized that Clark Kent was a Spokane Indian.’ And we laughed, you know, because sometimes that’s all two people have in common.” (162) Jimmy finds laughter to be the best medicine to survive, literally. Indeed, studies have shown that being positive and laughing often leads to better health. Go Indians!

"Officer, my tribal number is on the card behind my driver's license. I am a registered Spokane Indian. Sorry about the speeding, light is just so slow, ya know?" -Superman

Still, you have to realize that laughter saved Norma and me from pain, too. Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.

White Noise 2/2

            Death takes many shapes and forms in White Noise. It is even postulated that death is white noise itself, which I accept as the true definition. White Noise establishes something else about death though, in the second half; death is a positive thing. Jack and Babette disagree with this opinion and cannot get over their fear of death, but hearing the positive opinion of death definitely helps Jack.

            Jack and Babette discuss their intolerable paranoia of death and assert it as loud. “‘What if death is nothing but sound?’ ‘Electrical noise.’ ‘You hear it forever. Sound all around. How awful.’ ‘Uniform, white.’ ‘Sometimes it sweeps over me,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it insinuates itself into my mind, little by little…” (198-199) Their death is like their routine lives, boring and slightly terrifying.

Death =

            Winnie takes a different approach with death. Winnie believes that people need death, that death makes life precious. “I don’t know what your personal involvement is with this substance, … but I think it’s a mistake to lose one’s sense of death, even one’s fear of death. Isn’t death the boundary we need? Doesn’t it give a precious texture to life, a sense of definition? You have to ask yourself whether anything you do in this life would have beauty and meaning without the knowledge you carry a final line, a border or limit.” (228-229) Winnie gives new perspective to Jack, and Murray only reinforces this positive perspective.

Winnie's Personal Philosophy, Maybe?

            Murray shares Winnie’s belief that death brings a certain preciousness to life. “‘Doesn’t our knowledge of death make life more precious?’ ‘What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It’s an anxious quivering thing.’” (284) Murray relinquishes Jack’s fear of death by convincing him to fight to survive, become a killer instead of a dier.

            Jack accomplishes just this as he attempts the murder of his wife’s adulterer, but soon reaches a higher level of sophistication as he saves the man’s life. Jack has learned his lesson about life; death.

There is a fine line between Life and Death. Sometimes that line is blurred. Jack accomplishes this fuzzy perspective. Way to go, Jack.

White Noise 1/2

Wasted Death in Iron City, the Reaper is Angry!

            White Noise permeates with the looming theme of death in every chapter. Jack Gladney and his family reside in Blacksmith, and their theme of death involves guessing at who will die first; but in a city nearby, Iron City, the death theme becomes literal. People die or almost die in Iron City, but no one notices. Iron city remains cut off from society because of its lack of media.

            Tommy Roy Foster longed to be remembered, to go down in history. He heard voices in his head and killed five people. Unfortunately for him, he chose the killing site of Iron City. “‘Insistent pressuring voices. How did he deal with the media? Give lots of interviews, write letters to the editor of the local paper, try to make a book deal?’ ‘There is no media in Iron City. He didn’t think of that till it was too late. He says if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t do it as an ordinary murder, he would do it as an assassination.’” (45) Tommy views his killing as a waste of time and rightly so, because he did plan the whole thing purposefully after all.

            Another waste of people’s time occurs in Iron City due to the lack of media, again, but this time on accident. Jack Gladney leaves to pick up his daughter from the Iron City airport when other terrified passengers enter before her. It turns out that the passengers almost experienced a “crash landing” because all the plane engines failed at the same time, and they plummeted down to earth for four torturous miles before the engines miraculously started back up. A near death experience in Iron City, what a waste. “‘Where’s the media?’ she said. ‘There is no media in Iron City.’ ‘They went through all that for nothing?’” (92)

Planet Unicorn

The Crying of Lot 49 2/2

            Poor Oedipa, pobrecita! She has tried so hard throughout this novel to understand the meaning of the W.A.S.T.E. symbol and the Thurn and Taxis history with no avail. Oedipa and I forgot that this novel is a postmodern one, and therefore, the harder we both look for meaning behind relationships, the more disappointment we feel. Oedipa should have just enjoyed the ride along her adventure and I should have just treasured the story as a good one. Oedipa did scrape up some meaning for the muted post horn, though.

            Oedipa understands everything about her investigations to be a metaphor of God with many parts. “She knew a few things about it: it had opposed the Thurn and Taxis postal system in Europe; its symbol was a muted post horn; sometime before 1853 it had appeared in America and fought the Pony Express and Wells, Fargo, either as outlaws in black, or disguised as Indians; and it survived today, in California, serving as a channel of communication for those of unorthodox sexual persuasion, inventors who believed in the reality of Maxwell’s Demon,…” (109) Even this explanation of the novel’s happenings carries hardly any meaning whatsoever. It is a compilation of everything Oedipa gathers, but there exists no logical connections as she interacts with each new postmodern character.

Maxwell's Demon

            There is one solid connection, though, between the muted post horn, the mismarked stamps, the postal service, and W.A.S.T.E. Oedipa comes across a crying drunk man who tells her how to deliver a letter by pointing to the muted post horn tattoo on his hand and giving her directions to the underpinnings of the freeway. “But at last in the shadows she did come on a can with a swinging trapezoidal top, the kind you throw trash in: old and green, nearly four feet high. On the swinging part were hand-painted the initials W.A.S.T.E.” (129-130) People drop off their letters into this can and men carry the trash bags as the transport system for the letters. This trash can is the only material and real connection between the post conspiracy and the underground mail delivery, and at last, it is a tangible one.

Show your allegiance to the W.A.S.T.E.!

Oedipa will have to dig further to discover more, but I am afraid she will go insane during the process; and as the ending of the novel appeared, I realized that I will never find out. Damn postmodernism, where is my closure?

Where is the happy part?

The Crying of Lot 49 1/2

            In a bathroom, in a notebook, on a ring, and on some stamps, the loop/triangle/trapezoid appears, but what does it mean? My first guess is a trumpet with a plug in it, but I can’t be sure yet. The only fact I can gather is the shapes represent a symbol for W.A.S.T.E.

            The first appearance of the shapes occurs during Oedipa’s trip to the restroom. “On the latrine wall, among lipstick obscenities, she noticed the following message, neatly indited in engineering lettering: ‘Interested in sophisticated fun? You, hubby, girl friends. The more the merrier. Get in touch with Kirby, through WASTE only, Box 7391, L.A.’ WASTE? Oedipa wondered. Beneath the notice, faintly in pencil, was a symbol she’d never seen before, a loop, triangle and trapezoid…” (52) I do not think Kirby is important, but how did Oedipa know that the letters in the bathroom were “engineering lettering”?

            Luckily, the next time the symbol appears she is among an engineer in a building with which she holds stock. “Then by accident…or howsoever, she came on one Stanley Koteks, who wore wire-rim bifocals, sandals, argyle socks, and at first glance seemed too young to be working here. As it turned out he wasn’t working, only doodling with a fat felt pencil this sign:…” (84) At least this time the symbol appears, the person associated with it carries importance. Stanley leads Oedipa to John Nefastis, but more importantly, to Mr. Thoth.

            It is Mr. Thoth that reveals some meaning about the WASTE symbol. His grandfather was a Pony Express rider back during the gold rush days, and was attacked by men wearing all black. “‘My grandfather cut this from the finger of one of them he killed. Can you imagine a 91-year-old man so brutal?’ Oedipa stared. The device on the ring was once again the WASTE symbol.” (92) So, the WASTE symbol has something to do with mailing letters, or the post system, but what?

            The next clue given to the reader and the next instance of the WASTE symbol materializes into stamps. “‘The watermark.’ Oedipa peered. There it was again, her WASTE symbol, showing up black, a little right of center…Decorating each corner of the stamp, Oedipa saw a horn with a single loop in it. Almost like the WASTE symbol. ‘A post horn,’ Cohen said; ‘the Thurn and Taxis symbol. It was in their coat of arms.’” (96)

            At last! The WASTE symbol forms into a muted post horn! “The black costumes, the silence, the secrecy. Whoever they were their aim was to mute the Thurn and Taxis post horn.” (97) This explanation sits just fine with me, but who in the world is Thurn and Taxis? This novel only leaves me with more questions!

Bailey's Cafe 2/2

Go women!

            Finally, a woman who does not accept any shit! Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the only female character in Bailey’s Café who stands up for herself, fights back, and knows the consequences of racism; the “crazy Yuma squaw,” Miss Maple’s unnamed grandmother.

            The grandmother marries a black man because he pays for her fair and square. Indeed, her sale was going to happen eventually because of her beauty. She has mahogany skin, jet black hair, luscious breasts, and only one piece of bark covering her crotch. Just because she is beautiful, though, does not mean she will assimilate into the black man’s view of marriage. “My grandfather set about teaching her the most important phrases in English: I am the man. You – woman. But he found himself learning her language a whole lot quicker: co-barque. That meant no, and he was to hear it often.” (167)

A beautiful Yuma woman.

            Not only does the grandmother verbally assault her husband with rejection, she physically assaults him when necessary as well. “She gave him no peace, as she insisted she was going to California:…No help with the crops…No cooked meals…And finally, no sex. But you’re already in California, you damn fool, my grandfather would hold his aching balls at night and rage. But he knew what she meant and he also knew better than to try beating her into submission. That was how he’d learned the Cuchan words for his nose – e hotche – because she’d broken it.” (168)

            One would think that the Yuma woman never helped her husband one bit, but she did. Not only is the grandmother beautiful, strong, and fierce, she is also intelligent. “But my grandmother insisted on my grandfather paying them something, if only a penny a parcel, to make the sale papers legal. The Yumas had already learned what the white man could do when your land was given by God.” (170) Now, their children and their children’s children will own 3,000 acres of land that will be fertilized by a soon-coming irrigation system.

Your welcome, children. Eat your cacti!

The grandmother made her family filthy rich by doing things her way, which she had to fight for. In my opinion, she holds the title of best family member and of best woman ever, for that matter. It was more than relieving and pleasing to read about her in a book filled with abused prostitutes. The only infuriating issue I have about Miss Maple’s grandmother is that she is by far the strongest character in the entire novel, and she does not have a name.

Strongest woman in the world. (on the outside, at least)