My Favorite TOM LEHRER Song Is About A Russian

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hope Mr. Lehrer rests in Peace

but how is that possible

when

John Lennon will demand

to sing a duet

while James Brown

insists on choreographing it

and 

YOU will be following

Billie Holiday everywhere she goes

as if you were a good little  puppy

 

I sincerely hope

the reader is patient enough

to read the following verses

from 

LOBACHEVSKY

 

TOM LEHRER

________________________________________________________________________________________________

What The Hell Is ... "Vertical Verisimilitude"?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

What it means 

and how it sounds

ain't the same thing

If someone said

"Vertical Verisimilitude"

with a straight face,

I'd probably be 

inspired

to walk away

before they said 

anything else

 

It is equal to

someone paying $30

for three cents

worth 

of verbal candy

 

It refers to

dealing with

the UP and DOWN line

better known as

 the Vertical Axis

Think of a dog

who gets confused

by a tall and skinny 

tree

 

Then think of

a local genius

with $30 million

worth of talent

and patience

 

My specific reason

for using the phrase

is to emphasize

the sculpted look

of my

alleged poetry

 

AND

to introduce

my favorite song

by

Tom Lehrer  

but 

this page

ain't worth 

diddly squat

without 

what follows:

 

© PAUL OLIVERIO ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________

HOODA HELAMI's RECTANGULAR QUATRAIN

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Observe and

you shall see

Absorb  and

you  shall be

HOODA HELAMI

Alter Ego #142857

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rest In Peace, TOM LEHRER: An Acidly Funny Mathematician

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 ***

 

He wrote songs

with titles like

The Masochism Tango

:::

Poisoning Pigeons 

In the Park

:::

The Folk Song Army

:::

 

TOM LEHRER

has just passed away

 at the age of 97

 

His day job

—for many years—

was

teaching Mathematics

at Harvard

 

His night job 

—however briefly—

was performing 

at coffee houses

all over the world,

entertaining people

by the hundreds

while they danced

the bugaloo

with hyperactive

 brain cells

 

TOMORROW

this fellow mathematician

will present

his favorite 

Tom Lehrer song

 

He will do so

with

Vertical Verisimilitude

without really knowing

what that phrase 

actually means

 

       ________________________________________________________________________________________________

If MLB Predictions Had A Fifth Gear ...

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Because 

I could have

nightmares about 

anyone from 

New Jersey

wealthier than

Tony Soprano,

this page 

is link free

BUT 

 I must note 

that a player named

Aaron Judge

is presently disabled

and 

CANNOT PLAY

for the 

"Bronx Bombers"

:::

Text-Overio #920.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Multi-Racial Rose

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The multi-racial rose

knows

the fragrance of harmony

 

Hate

will always

wear a hat

but 

beneath its brim

—whether a her or him—

you can break 

the code

with 

a ten-second

joke or jive

and invisible

high-5

 

Human communication

has many

a mode

:::

 

© HOODA HELAMI ©

Alter Ego #142857

 

© Mr. + Mrs. CarPeo ©

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

PhotoVerio #920: Contemplating The Other Side

________________________________________________________________________________________________

How did the chicken get there?

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

May The RORSCHACH Be With You

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

PhotoVerio #919.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

PhotoVerio #919: Abstracted + Cropped BOB's BIG BOY

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Belated Apology To LIBERTY DeVITO's Family

________________________________________________________________________________________________

There will be 

neither hyperlinks

nor images on this page

because I do not know

the statute of limitations

in New York 

for being

a F*cking Idiot

 

But the story told below

is 99% fact 

________________

__________________

 

It was the Summer of 1968

when a 19-year-old punk

drives his car into the

 DEVITO CAR DEALERSHIP

in Smithtown

 

The warranty on his

Volkswagen Automatic Bug

entitled him 

to a free tune-up

::::

 

The punk and his two 

best buddies 

from Rocky Point

had heard that

the bulletin board

at this dealership

featured pictures

of 

Billy Joel's drummer

 

That proved to be true

and we uttered 

"WOW"

eleven times

:::

One for each toke of marajuana

we had smoked

that morning

 

HOWEVER,

the dealership

kept us waiting

endlessly

for the tune-up

to be completed

despite the vehicle

ultimately

being parked

where six other people

had driven away

with their serviced cars

 

Let's just get 

the F*ck outta here

said the owner

of the Volkswagen Bug

 

AND SO WE DROVE

BACK TO ROCKY POINT

 

The punk's parents

were sitting comfortably

at the foot 

of their driveway

on 

137 Friendship Drive

They were not looking too happy

"Turn the car around, Paul.

We're taking a trip to Smithtown

without your junkie campanions."

 

He told me 

He told the punk

that the whos-a-ma-dingy

on the whatcha-macallit

had purposely been loosened

making the repaired car

only driveable

for 50 miles

:::

 

The only time

the punk ever heard his father

use profanity was on that

return trip to Smithtown:

 

"If there was ever one thing

I thing I do not want you to be

it's a F*cking stupid thief

________________

 

________________

 

The punk's parents

promised him a severe punishment

for his misdeed

but forgot to impose it

 

As for the punk's 

"junkie companions"

 he will only say

one of them became 

a distinguished 

Suffolk County Detective

and the other

is 

a District Attorney

 :::

 :::

 

 

© Paul Oliverio ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Comic Relief #6454 ... He Killed 1 Mockingbird + 2 Capotes

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

BILL BRAMHALL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Obituaries For A "Godfather" + The Son Of A Famous Doctor

________________________________________________________________________________________________

MAKI...  ...   ...JAMAL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

PhotoVerio #918: Unless We Don't Catch You

________________________________________________________________________________________________

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paul Is A Real Estate Novelist Who Never Had Time For A Wife

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Paul Oliverio

and

Billy Joel

 were

both Bronx-born 

in May 1949

 

Both of us

have sisters 

named Judi

::::::::::::::::

 

Paul owns/has owned

five pieces of real estate

within walking distance

of 

the Pacific Ocean [2x]

the Long Island Sound [2x]

+

the East River

 

He had time for a wife

for the equivalent

of a cup of coffee

😎😎😎

😎😎😎

😎😎😎

  😎😎😎  

 

And then along came

Mrs. CarPeo

 

She is the greatest

visual artist

Paul has ever known

😍😍😍

 😍😍😍 

  😍😍😍  

  😍😍😍  

Her comments 

appear below

 BUT FIRST

I must 

acknowledge

 

The Piano Man

 

HOWEVER

My real-life encounter

with the father

of Billy Joel's

drummer

is

here 

   

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If APOLOGIES Had A Fifth Gear

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If 

APOLOGIES

had a fifth gear,

this is what

you need to hear:

 

I'd downhill drive

a

Mini-Cooper

then

 get down 

on my knees

shouting fifty times

Mea Culpa

!!!

Because

I blasted that many

people

from Mr. CarPeo's

peephole

an "urgent" message

too easy to misconstrue

!!!

 

Now

I need to be heard

from hell to heaven

from here to 7/11

screaming

 

 Mrs. CarPeo,

I apologize 

to YOU 

***

 

© Paul Oliverio ©

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If Fear Had A Fifth Gear

________________________________________________________________________________________________

If Fear

had a fifth gear,

I'd drive a

Hot Rod Lincoln

and 

here's what I'm thinkin'

if I had my way:

I would drive up

the Hollywood Freeway

and smash 

—like a sweet potater—

into 

the Ford Theater

***

© HOODA HELAMI ©

Alter Ego #142857

________________________________________________________________________________________________

CIVIL RIGHTS HEROES Of ... Nikki Hill

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

National Award-winning Essay

Reproduced exactly as written 

By student of my friend,

MATT MADDOX

 

Written by niece 

of  a Rock & Roll

Hall of Famer  

 

TWO BERRIES AND A KING

by Nikki Hill
My personal civil rights heroes are two Berrys and a King but the King is not Marti Luther King who was a beloved hero of underprivileged people everywhere, like me.Enough students are smarter than me in Mr. Maddox's class and they will write about Dr. King and Myhatman Gandhi from India. But the King who is my civil rights hero is The King of Rock&Roll, Elvis Presley, and the first Berry is Chuck.

Elvis did not invent Rock&Roll. He just put it on every television in America, thanks to the Eddie Sullivan Show and a crazy hound dog with a pair of blue suede shoes. That was in the Nineteen Fifties.
Before there was Elvis there was a lot of great Rock&Roll but it was called “race music,” said my Uncle Leon and it had nothing to do with the 100-yard dash. It was funky music by black singing groups like the Moonglows and the Clovers but it was considered devilish for white kids because it would make them shake and shimmy and get their parents really pissed off. Leon Hughes, my uncle, was a founding member of the Coasters who sang a song called Along Came Jones.
Then along came Chuck Berry who is black because Elvis is white and Chuck wrote songs about school days and sweet little sixteen parties. Chuck Berry did not sound crazy black and Elvis did not sound lazy white but they both sounded pretty cool and were great to dance to. Uncle Leon used to be on the same shows with Elvis and Chuck Berry singing "Yakkety-Yak Don't Talk Back" and "Charlie Brown He's a Clown."
There was a lot of hostility and hatred from older white people because they could not understand the fun of jumping around to a juke box and doing demon dances. But then it happened that Mr. Moneybags from Madison Avenue learned something valuable. Whenever Chuck Berry sang "Maybelline" on the radio or television, it helped sell Maybelline Perfume. Then Chuck Berry told Johnny to be good on the Dick Clerk Show and suddenly, you had white kids and black kids dancing to the same music on the same dance floor and having the same kind of fun together.
Elvis got very philosophical and sang Wombapashobop a womp-bam boom. He was really a very polite person and made white mommies and daddies stop being afraid. But Elvis was black on the inside and white people began thinking maybe it's all right to be black on the outside.

It is now 1999 and I am a student at Jefferson High School and almost all students here are brown or Latino like my boyfriend Luis and he is not black or white but is a really fun guy. But I am not writing to talk about Luis or Carlos who can steal my heart any time he wants it. I am talking about bringing the races of the world together which is what Civil Rights is all about and Rock&Roll was a big helper to heal racial dividers.
Rock&Roll can take fear & prejudice and throw them both out the window. This has worked for white & black kids but, like I said, almost all of the students at Jefferson High School in South-Central Los Angeles are brown. And they got Rock& Roll in their blood whether they know it or not. Latinos answered the question Why Do Fools Fall In Love because Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers included two boys named Herman Santiago and Joe Negroni. Frankie Lymon asked the question and the Teenagers answered.
Fools fall in love because de doom-wop a doom-wop a doom-wop a doedoe which is a good a reason as any, I guess.
Also, brown people inspired the most recorded song in the history of music and that is why Richard Berry is my third personal Civil Rights hero and the second Berry. And also, Richard Berry was a student here at Tommy Jefferson High School just like me but only much older like his classmate, my Uncle Leon, who helped me a lot to write this essay.
In 1955, Richard Berry became a singer and songwriter who was performing with a Mexican band in Anaheim, which is where Disneyland is. The band was playing a song called “El Loco Cha-Cha” and it inspired him to write Louie Louie on a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. This is what Richard Berry told students when Mr. Maddox got him to perform at Jefferson in 1988. Mr. Berry also said the same thing on television to Larry King who is no relation to Marti Luther King or Elvis the King.
But Louie Louie did not become famous until some white boys called the Kingsmen sang it Rock&Roll style in a really cheap studio with a microphone hanging three inches from the ceiling. The lyrics sounded fuzzy and twisted and they bent the ears of millions of teenagers who swore they heard dirty words in the song. But Jefferson students know better because the original lyrics are on a poster in Mr. Maddox's classroom and the Kingsmen didn't change them except for the line “We gotta go” which Richard wrote as “Me gotta go.”
Louie Louie was recorded over four hundred times. Plus all the times rock bands played the song in someone's garage early in their careers. I think that means that just about everybody in music did Louie Louie except Beethoven, who had rolled over, according to the other Berry (Chuck Berry, no relation). Richard Berry wrote the song when he was a black kid and it was white boys who made it famous but it was brown musicians who inspired the second Berry to write it. That's Multi-culturism!

It was Mr. Browne, the first black music teacher in Los Angeles, who brought famous people to Jefferson High School where I go and made famous musicians and singers out of students like Dexter Gordon and Charlie Mingus (who played hookie to come to our school) then the Coasters & the Platters & the Penguins who sang Earth Angel which was written by Jessie Belvin, a student Mr. Maddox showed us in a 1950 Jefferson yearbook.
When we hear Earth Angel, Luis and I want to kiss. Or maybe I will kiss Carlos. I would tell you more about Mr. Browne but someone else is going to do that if Mr. Maddox invites my Uncle Leon to come to school. He will talk about his favorite teacher and the Coasters and other stuff.
♥***♥

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Most Stunning MLB Statistic ... Aaron Has Hit 1021 Home Runs

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 

surnamed

AARON

has 765

of

those 

home runs 

The

first-named

AARON

has 361

of

 those 

home runs

as 

of

this 

writing

________________________________________________________________________________________________

MUST BE SEEN ... TO BE BELIEVED

________________________________________________________________________________________________

!!!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

This Paul Welcomes That Paul

________________________________________________________________________________________________

CHRIS PAUL

reunites with the Clippers

for his 21st season

in the NBA

***

 Equal welcome for Bradley Beal

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once You Had A Lasso ... Once You Had A Heart

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once you had a lasso

once you had a rope

corralling cute tomatoes

but not one had hope

To be in your future

because your heart

had a suture

 

You loved 

but three:

the Ma

the Pa

and 

the Sister

 

You always wanted

to kiss her

 

Which you do

every Yesterday

and it is fun,

dating back

to 1971

 

So you live

and you learn

and you think

"Hey pretty girl"

but all do is

wink

then reach for

a drink

***

 

© PAUL OLIVERIO © 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Empty Volleyball Courts Soon To Draw Worldwide Attention

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

***

© PhotoVerio #917.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

It Ain't Bragging If It Is True

________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is one handsome dude

The titled quote is from

"YOGI BERRA"

 

The bragging rights

belong to

PAUL OLIVERIO

  who is 

eternally grateful to

DONALD BARTLETTI

 

He photographed me

in 1987

and

I still have 

the same amount

of hair

on my head

in 2025

 

My hair has

never been

chemically treated

but 

all my teeth are

born-again

dentures  

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Margaret Forgive Me For I Have Sinned

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lock me

in that Nunnery

so those

who have none

will have one

 

Allowing

REALITY

to intervene:

in this image

I am reddened 

with guilt and shame

 

Here's why:

I had read 

almost 150 pages

of this book

within two days

and 

was totally enthralled

by the story

 

The following week

I read no more than

six pages,

doing more 

head-scratching

than reading

****************

 

I put the book aside

with Page 153

highlighted

 ****************

 

NOW:

Let me say this

about that

 

Atop

the book image,

I underlined

"Worldwide Bestseller"

and I hope the author

made a gazillion dollars

as a result

 because

 in my opinion

no one alive today

—writing in English—

is more talented 

than Margaret Atwood

 

When you read 

a dozen books

by the same writer,

you have enough 

mental lumber

to build

such a conclusion

 

Novels, short stories, poetry,

and social criticism:

 

Margaret does it all

with such ease, wit, 

wisdom, shock value

—and best of all—

very dark humor

 

She writes 

like someone

whose next book

can be written

while the author

is blindfolded

and the result

will still be

wonderfully 

brilliant

****************

 

 My favorite title is

"The Edible Woman"

(1969)

and 

Penelopiad

(2005)  

is an updated version of

ODYSSEY

written from

a different perspective

 

The original version

was written by 

Homer

and his tale is told

over the course of

one thousand pages

Not until I am locked away

in a nut house

would I attempt to read what

the first modern novelist

penned 

almost

 ten centuries ago

 

Penelopiad

is 224 pages 

****************

 

Margaret Atwood

is 86-years-old

but sometimes

she can pass for

a 33-year-old

****************

 

My secret hope

is that 

between the time

you read this page

from top-to-bottom,

Margaret Atwood makes

another gazillion dollars

+

and hires Mrs. CarPeo

to do the artwork

for her next

book 

****************

 

© PAUL OLIVERIO ©

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________