Slander
FITCH:
'All vices you've exhausted, friend;
So all the papers say.'
PICKERING:
'Ah, what vile calumnies are penned!-
'Tis just the other way.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Related quotes
On Receiving Hayley's Picture
In language warm as could be breathed or penned
Thy picture speaks the original my friend,
Not by those looks that indicate thy mind,
They only speak thee friend of all mankind;
Expression here more soothing still I see,
That friend of all, a partial friend to me.
poem by William Cowper
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Sunday Papers
Mother doesnt go out any more
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside
If you want to know about the bishop and the actress
If you want to know how to be a star
If you want to know about the stains on the mattress
You can read it in the sunday papers, sunday papers
Mothers wheelchair stays out in the hall
Why should she go out when the tvs on
Whatever moves beyond these walls
Shell know the facts when sunday comes along
If you want to know about the man gone bonkers
If you want to know how to play guitar
If you want to know about the other suckers
You can read it in the sunday papers, read it in the sunday papers
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Brothers heading that way now I guess
He just read something made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldnt print it if it wasnt true
If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to drive your car
If you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the sunday papers, read it in the sunday papers
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Read all about it, sunday papers
song performed by by Joe Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Credit Rating Agencies: Moody's, Standard & Poor's & Fitch
To John Moody, Henry Varnum Poor and John Knowles Fitch
1.
moody's this is gin fizz to be a techno-wizz
2.
standard & poor's and floors for poors and doors for poors
3.
fitch and irrigation stitch international pitch
poem by Nicolas Grenier
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Yesterday's Papers
Who wants yesterdays papers
Who wants yesterdays girl
Who wants yesterdays papers
Nobody in the world
After this time I finally learned
After the pain and hurt
After all this what have I achieved
I've realized it's time to leave
Cause
Cho wants yesterdays papers
Who wants yesterdays girl
Who wants yesterdays papers
Nobody in the world
Living a life of constant change
Every day means the turn of a page
Yesterdays papers are such bad news
Same thing applies to me and you
Who wants yesterdays papers
Who wants yesterdays girl
Who wants yesterdays papers
Nobody in the world
Seems very hard to have just one girl
When there's a million in the world
All of these people just can't wait
To fall right into their big mistake
Who wants yesterdays papers
Who wants yesterdays girl
Who wants yesterdays papers
Nobody in the world
song performed by by Rolling Stones from Between The Buttons
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Monday Papers
I dont want to go out any more
I read the news, I cant believe my eyes
I push the table against the door
You know Ive had it with the world outside
If you want to know about the murderers and junkies
If you want to know about the lower east side
Now they got a map shows you where to get your monkey
You can read it in the monday papers, monday papers
Some people like a little gore
Some people always at the scenes of crimes
Now they can watch the tv more
Now they can get it in the sunday times
If you find it hard to handle what you see on page one
You can pull the funnies out and have some laughs
Take a drink and maybe you can laugh at ronald reagan
You can read it in the monday papers, read it in the monday papers
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Brothers heading that way now I guess
He just read something made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldnt print it if it wasnt true
If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to be a star
Ladies - if you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the monday papers, read it in the monday papers
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Read all about it, monday papers
song performed by by Joe Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tabloid Pigs
Tabloid pigs to the slaughter house
Tomorrows chip-papers looking thin
The hacks and waiting to be hacked
Front page headline ‘Karma wins’
The corrupt uncaring vices you undertook
On which you built your little empire
Is now falling apart around your feet
You have no friends left in this town
Now after every story you ran
Tabloid pigs to the slaughter house
Come answer to your crimes
Stand, be counted for what you’ve done
In the public interest I do believe
Is what you have always said
You were not journalists or news reporters
Just vile little piggy’s snorting around
In the dirt for what you could sell
Regardless of crime or consequence
Tabloid pigs to the slaughter house
The time has come, last edition
poem by Matthew Holloway
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The Mummery
THE TWO CAVEES
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
FITCH _a Pelter of Railrogues_
PICKERING _his Partner, an Enemy to Sin_
OLD NICK _a General Blackwasher_
DEAD CAT _a Missile_
ANTIQUE EGG _Another_
RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Unassorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance
_Scene_-The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.
_Time_-1875.
FITCH:
Gods! what a steep declivity! Below
I see the lazy dump-carts come and go,
Creeping like beetles and about as big.
The delving Paddies-
PICKERING:
Case of _infra dig._
FITCH:
Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips
Come with but scant propriety from lips
Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage,
For men will fancy, hearing how you pun,
Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.
(_Enter Dead Cat._)
Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand;
Slant your fine eye below and see it land.
(_Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw._)
DEAD CAT (_singing_):
Merrily, merrily, round I go-
Over and under and at.
Swing wide and free, swing high and low
The anti-monopoly cat!
O, who wouldn't be in the place of me,
The anti-monopoly cat?
Designed to admonish,
Persuade and astonish
The capitalist and-
FITCH _(letting go):_
Scat!
_(Exit Dead Cat.)_
PICKERING:
Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young.
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though
'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe
The traitor one for leaving us!-some day
We'll get, if not his place, his cart away.
Meantime fling missiles-any kind will do.
_(Enter Antique Egg.)_
Ha! we can give them an _ovation_, too!
ANTIQUE EGG:
In the valley of the Nile,
Where the Holy Crocodile
Of immeasurable smile
Blossoms like the early rose,
And the Sacred Onion grows
When the Pyramids were new
And the Sphinx possessed a nose,
By a storkess I was laid
In the cool papyrus shade,
Where the rushes later grew,
That concealed the little Jew,
Baby Mose.
Straining very hard to hatch,
I disrupted there my yolk;
And I felt my yellow streaming
Through my white;
And the dream that I was dreaming
Of posterity was broke
In a night.
Then from the papyrus-patch
By the rising waters rolled,
Passing many a temple old,
I proceeded to the sea.
Memnon sang, one morn, to me,
And I heard Cambyses sass
The tomb of Ozymandias!
FITCH:
O, venerablest orb of all the earth,
God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw
I freely tender thee mine own. Although
As a bad egg I am myself no slouch,
Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say
If-whoop!-
_(Exit egg.)_
I've got the range.
PICKERING:
Hooray! hooray!
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down:
It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
Larry O'Crocker drops his pick and flies,
And deafening odors scream along the skies!
Pelt 'em some more.
FITCH:
There's nothing left but tar-
wish I were a Yahoo.
PICKERING:
Well, you are.
But keep the tar. How well I recollect,
When Mike was in with us-proud, strong, erect
_Mens conscia recti_-flinging mud, he stood,
Austerely brave, incomparably good,
Ere yet for filthy lucre he began
To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man,
That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick
Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
_(Enter Old Nick)_.
I hope he won't return and use his arts
To make us part with our immortal parts.
OLD NICK:
Make yourself easy on that score my lamb;
For both your souls I wouldn't give a damn!
I want my tar-pot-hello! where's the stick?
FITCH:
Don't look at _me_ that fashion!-look at Pick.
PICKERING:
Forgive me, father-pity my remorse!
Truth is-Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
It fills my pericardium with grief
That I kept company with such a thief.
(_Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and
the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit
reproachfully and withdraws in tears._)
FITCH (_excitedly_):
O Pickering, come hither to the brink-
There's something going on down there, I think!
With many an upward smile and meaning wink
The navvies all are running from the cut
Like lunatics, to right and left-
PICKERING:
Tut, tut-
'Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke.
Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke.
(_They sit and light cigars._)
FITCH (_singing_):
When first I met Miss Toughie
I smoked a fine cigyar,
An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
BOTH (_singing_):
An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
FITCH (_singing_):
I couldn't go to her,
An' she wouldn't come to me;
An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
BOTH (_singing_):
An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
FITCH (_singing_):
But purty soon I weakened
An' lef' de dummy's bench,
An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
BOTH (_singing_)
An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
FITCH:
Is there not now a certain substance sold
Under the name of fulminate of gold,
A high explosive, popular for blasting,
Producing an effect immense and lasting?
PICKERING:
Nay, that's mere superstition. Rocks are rent
And excavations made by argument.
Explosives all have had their day and season;
The modern engineer relies on reason.
He'll talk a tunnel through a mountain's flank
And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank.
(_The earth trembles, a deep subterranean explosion is heard and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and plunges thunderously into the cut. A part of it strikes De Young's dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling, skyward, a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant mountains, where it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull themselves out of the debris and stand ungraveling their eyes and noses._)
FITCH:
Well, since I'm down here I will help to grade,
And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade.
PICKERING:
God bless my soul! it gave me quit a start.
Well, fate is fate-I guess I'll drive this cart.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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sms on 'Coriolanus
A petty turn turns foe to friend
And likewise friend to foe. (IV.iv - paraphrase)
Menenius Agrippa died- What time saved
Did I bid SPELL
Did not have SPELL bid me - (aside)
So Fiennes penned;
Lived on-penned Avon Bard.
Coriolanus fell by Shakespeare's pen
Not swinging wildly with Ralph's blade
But bladeless in cold blood.
With William writhing in his plot,
Scolding, 'What right to write such rot? ! '
And Ralph his endings firm defending-
Suicide and swordfight hot-
Let's leave the two with hope unending,
A petty turn will see foe friending.
poem by Douglas Scotney
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Back in the East you can't do much without the right papers, but with the right papers you can do anything The believe in papers. Papers are power.
quote by Tom Stoppard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One And One Are Two
The trumpet sounded and the dead
Came forth from earth and ocean,
And Pickering arose and sped
Aloft with wobbling motion.
'What makes him fly lop-sided?' cried
A soul of the elected.
'One ear was wax,' a rogue replied,
'And isn't resurrected.'
Below him on the pitted plain,
By his abandoned hollow,
His hair and teeth tried all in vain
The rest of him to follow.
Saint Peter, seeing him ascend,
Came forward to the wicket,
And said: 'My mutilated friend,
I'll thank you for your ticket.'
'The _Call_,' said Pickering, his hand
To reach the latch extended.
Said Peter, affable and bland:
'The free-list is suspended
'What claim have you that's valid here?'
That ancient vilifier
Reflected; then, with look austere,
Replied: 'I am a liar.'
Said Peter: 'That is simple, neat
And candid Anglo-Saxon,
But-well, come in, and take a seat
Up there by Colonel Jackson.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Exhale The Vile
Can't match the stare within these eyes
Do you have the strength for all your lies
Can't stand the pain with which i see
This integrity is what i breathe
I inhale this life i gave to you
And exhale the vile
Time will tell
Because my friend and
Never will I concede the end
Cause catarac resin fills my eyes
Never gonna see the man
Through your fake lies
Tell me the things
thatll take time
To help see the things
That'll take this
Burn inside of me
Can't feel the sting from words gone by
Can't keep the papers filled with lies
Ten fold
song performed by by Machine Head from The Burning Red
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Yet my humble capacity has not preserved me from calumnies.
quote by Lajos Kossuth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
quote by Saint Aurelius Augustine
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Upon the Silent Woman
Hear, you bad writers, and though you not see,
I will inform you where you happy be:
Provide the most malicious thoughts you can,
And bend them all against some private man,
To bring him, not his vices, on the stage;
Your envy shall be clad in some poor rage,
And your expressing of him shall be such,
That he himself shall think he hath no touch.
Where he that strongly writes, although he mean
To scourge but vices in a laboured scene,
Yet private faults shall be so well express'd
As men do get 'em, that each private breast,
That finds these errors in itself, shall say,
'He meant me, not my vices, in the play.'
poem by Francis Beaumont
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We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
quote by Saint Augustine
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Substance Versus Shadow
So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt,
Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt!
Spare the offender and condemn Offense,
And make life miserable to Pretense!
'Whip Vice and Folly-that is satire's use
But be not personal, for _that's_ abuse;
Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen,
Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.''
Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe,
To think that razor but an old, old saw,
A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure,
That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure.
Go to! go to!-you're as unfitted quite
To give advice to writers as to write.
I find in Folly and in Vice a lack
Of head to hit, and for the lash no back;
Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck,
And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)
Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,
God gave to him a corn, a heel to me.
He, also, sets his face (so like a flint
The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't)
With cold austerity, against these wars
On scamps-'tis Scampery that _he_ abhors!
Behold advance in dignity and state
Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great
Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows
In alms what t'other one as justice owes.
Rascality attends him like a shade,
But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade,
Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed.
Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel,
If, like Pelides, only in the heel.
The fellow's self invites assault; his crimes
Will each bear killing twenty thousand times!
Anon Creed Haymond-but the list is long
Of names to point the moral of my song.
Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise,
They foul the earth and horrify the skies
With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man
In all the reek of that rapscallion clan)
Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can!
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Exhausted
Exhausted.
From the high cost of living,
Charity giving and donated sweat.
Let's you and me,
Set aside some time so we...
Can get busy!
Exhausted!
From daily fears warned,
And people torned
Between what's right and wrong.
Let's you and me,
Cast aside those trivialities.
Getting butt naked...
And doing as we please,
Getting busy!
Exhausted...
From creditors who call,
To arrange bill payments!
The neighbors barking dogs,
And arguments not making sense.
Let's pretend we have none at all,
And get busy after dating for lunch...
Easing these tensions,
With the headboard banging against the wall.
Busy like rabbits and making catcalls.
Are you exhausted,
By those images I recall?
Me too!
And I am so glad you didn't dare me,
Like your eyes were wishing for those days
Like I do!
We both know we're too...
Busy to get naughty,
Like we did before age 40.
When we come to that line we'll cross it.
Next time!
But right now we're both much too exhausted!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A Silurian Holiday
'Tis Master Fitch, the editor;
He takes an holiday.
Now wherefore, venerable sir,
So resolutely gay?
He lifts his head, he laughs aloud,
Odzounds! 'tis drear to see!
'Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd
Will soon be far from me.
'Full many a year I've striven well
To freeze the caitiffs out
By making this good town a Hell,
But still they hang about.
'They maken mouths and eke they grin
At the dollar limit game;
And they are holpen in that sin
By many a wicked dame.
'In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell
My bruised mind to ease.
Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell!
Hail, unfamiliar trees!'
Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie,
And all the country folk
Besought him that he come not nigh
The deadly poison oak!
He smiled a cheerful smile (the day
Was straightway overcast)
The poison oak along his way
Was blighted as he passed!
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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If You Had A Friend
If you had a friend strong, simple, true,
Who knew your faults and who understood;
Who believed in the very best of you,
And who cared for you as a father would;
Who would stick by you to the very end,
Who would smile however the world might frown:
I'm sure you would try to please your friend,
You never would think to throw him down.
And supposing your friend was high and great,
And he lived in a palace rich and tall,
And sat like a King in shining state,
And his praise was loud on the lips of all;
Well then, when he turned to you alone,
And he singled you out from all the crowd,
And he called you up to his golden throne,
Oh, wouldn't you just be jolly proud?
If you had a friend like this, I say,
So sweet and tender, so strong and true,
You'd try to please him in every way,
You'd live at your bravest -- now, wouldn't you?
His worth would shine in the words you penned;
You'd shout his praises . . . yet now it's odd!
You tell me you haven't got such a friend;
You haven't? I wonder . . . What of God?
poem by Robert William Service
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A Friend LikeYou
A friend like you is like no other friend
A friend like you is a friend I don't regret meeting
A friend like you is like a friend I can't scream at or fight with
A friend like you is like having no worries in my life
A friend like you is a friend that I don't want to lose
A friend like you is like being in comfort all day
A friend like you is a friend I always wanted
A friend like you is awesomely awesome
A friend like you is random and funny
A friend like you is a friend that I love to death and I will never let go
A friend like you is a friend I can tell all my secrets to
A friend like you..
A friend like you is like the little sister I've always wanted
A friend that I can go to tell them what's wrong
A friend like you is like having no dark days because you brighten them up
A friend like you is a friend that opens up my eyes and helps me avoid bad things
A friend like you is a type of friend that laughs at dumb things I say or do
A friend like you is a friend I am proud to call my best friend...
poem by Shubham Kumar
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