Here’s a little performance poem written back in the early 80s for venues like the Chelsea Tavern, far too politically incorrect to ever be accommodated these days in a volume of Australian writings, or likely even spoken on the boards, though you never know I might add it later in the year to my cut-down Warner tour featuring music, poems and various writings. It’s a little Benny Hill but then in the toilet stalls of life Art often finds itself beside fart – and anyway what’s wrong with Benny?
TED’S PROBLEM (dave warner)
Ted’s a mate of ours he’s not too good looking
Apparently the sewage burst while Ted’s Mum and Dad were fff …foneymooning
They say the scare it gave Ted’s mum was written on the baby’s face
Ted’s not too bright either always two lengths off the pace
Anyway Ted’s a mate of ours and not too good looking
He’s 26 and lives at home – he says he likes Mum’s cooking
Is it any wonder Ted’s story’s so heart rending
Truth is Ted is always sad because he cannot get his end in.
It almost happened once at the pyramids near Cairo
An American art student mistook our Ted for Miro
He was doodling on a postcard – Ted cannot spell so he does sketching
She saw the hieroglyphics and invited him to see her etchings
But later in her boudoir Ted’s very fishy she can smell it
And she let’s out a shriek as he jabs his finger in her palate
That’s the trouble with our Ted whenever girls befriend him
He goes completely apeshit because he’s never had his end in
Following this North African fiasco
Ted takes a skiing jaunt on the slopes of Kosciuszko
All day he keeps his ski-mask on so as not to cause affright
Biding his time patiently for snow drifts in the night
And sure enough the snow comes down and the Lodge is ice besieged
Leaving Ted the centre of attention of eighteen randy bleach haired divorcees
Ted whips it off and whips it out announcing every one he’ll cherish
But eighteen randy divorcees prefer to quit the Lodge and perish
A tear stains Ted’s one good eye as he surveys the soft white blanket
So close but he’s alone now and he knows he’ll have to … radio for help.
They charged Ted with manslaughter but his QC when defending
Pointed out it was not Ted’s fault he couldn’t get his end in.
We even took Ted down to Steve’s for the famous Sunday Session
What a wasted effort it only deepened Ted’s depression
It was a dumb idea none of us have even got a sniff despite our constant spending
How was skin-flint, bung-eyed Ted ever gonna get his end in?
Then one day last week Ted announced that he had scored
We said the only leg you’re pulling is the one that doesn’t touch the floor
But he won us over by vividly describing
The diet of debauchery on which he’d recently been thriving
And then in a revelation I saw the truth about this sexual melange
Ted was one of those – Ted had gone Orange!
We tried to pull Ted back from the bottomless abyss
But Ted had got his end in and he was having none of this
He caught a plane to Oregon – sold the Superroo
Kept in touch though sent a picture postcard proclaiming each new screw
But a loser is a loser and ne’er a winner can be
And this culminated in Ted’s honeymoon with his thirteen brides to be
Posing for the wedding photo on the slopes beneath Pompei
Pompei took one look at Ted and spewed its guts away
Immortalising Ted’s non pulchritude forever in black stone
So grotesque, passing gulls don’t squawk they only moan and groan
But while Ted he may be gone he’ll never be forgotten
And just to prove it every Friday night we drink ourselves half-rotten
And when our eyes go moist at the thought of Ted’s untimely ending
We console ourselves with the fact that at last Ted got his end in.
Unrelated comment, as an email to your address bounced back at me. Ok to make an order for a couple of books – I’m in the UK?
Yes Col, you should be able to order from the website at https://www.davewarner.com.au