Rented!
{To the tune of the song "Rent" from the musical Rent}
[JOHN]
How do you document real time life
When real time life is more than
Thirty years away?
Pun, rhyme, no time
Blows my mind
And 6 week deadlines
Too bad reprints don’t pay
Rented!
[ELLY]
How do you write a strip
When you’re no longer hip
Though you were once in the top ten
When the art is sour
Where is the power
You once had when you used a pen?
[JOHN]
And we're Canadian and frozen
[ELLY]
This life that we've chosen
[TOGETHER]
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[JOHN]
We fire our staff
[ELLY]
How do you fire a staff
When there's no one to burn
And it feels like there’s nothing left to do
[JOHN]
How can you generate cash
When you have to go slash
[BOTH]
Everyone helping you!
[JOHN]
You light up a new craze
[ELLY]
With Farley plush--
[JOHN]
Shipping delays
[ELLY AND JOHN]
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[JOHN AND HALF OF COMPANY]
How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your strip
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Till Lynn finally quits
Rented!
[ELLY AND OTHER HALF OF COMPANY]
How can you connect in an age
Where Trudeau is Prime Minister and
Lawrence Poirier’s not yet gay
[ALL]
What binds the storyline together
When the raging, inconsistent timeline
Keeps ripping it away
[JOHN]
Draw a line in the strip
And then let it rip
[ELLY]
Use your skills to parlay
[JOHN]
A children’s book with Farley
[ALL]
When Coffee Talk acts tough - you call their bluff
[JOHN AND ELLY]
We're not gonna pay
[JOHN AND ELLY WITH HALF OF COMPANY]
We're not gonna pay
[JOHN AND ELLY WITH OTHER HALF OF COMPANY]
We're not gonna pay
[ALL]
Hybrid rented
New-run rented
Reprint rented
Rented rented rented rented rented
We're not gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[ELLY AND JOHN]
'Cause Elly Patterson is rented
[JOHN]
How do you document real time life
When real time life is more than
Thirty years away?
Pun, rhyme, no time
Blows my mind
And 6 week deadlines
Too bad reprints don’t pay
Rented!
[ELLY]
How do you write a strip
When you’re no longer hip
Though you were once in the top ten
When the art is sour
Where is the power
You once had when you used a pen?
[JOHN]
And we're Canadian and frozen
[ELLY]
This life that we've chosen
[TOGETHER]
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[JOHN]
We fire our staff
[ELLY]
How do you fire a staff
When there's no one to burn
And it feels like there’s nothing left to do
[JOHN]
How can you generate cash
When you have to go slash
[BOTH]
Everyone helping you!
[JOHN]
You light up a new craze
[ELLY]
With Farley plush--
[JOHN]
Shipping delays
[ELLY AND JOHN]
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[JOHN AND HALF OF COMPANY]
How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your strip
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Till Lynn finally quits
Rented!
[ELLY AND OTHER HALF OF COMPANY]
How can you connect in an age
Where Trudeau is Prime Minister and
Lawrence Poirier’s not yet gay
[ALL]
What binds the storyline together
When the raging, inconsistent timeline
Keeps ripping it away
[JOHN]
Draw a line in the strip
And then let it rip
[ELLY]
Use your skills to parlay
[JOHN]
A children’s book with Farley
[ALL]
When Coffee Talk acts tough - you call their bluff
[JOHN AND ELLY]
We're not gonna pay
[JOHN AND ELLY WITH HALF OF COMPANY]
We're not gonna pay
[JOHN AND ELLY WITH OTHER HALF OF COMPANY]
We're not gonna pay
[ALL]
Hybrid rented
New-run rented
Reprint rented
Rented rented rented rented rented
We're not gonna pay
Elly’s rented
[ELLY AND JOHN]
'Cause Elly Patterson is rented
posted by howard at 11:01 PM
7 Comments:
This is a lot funnier than watching John beating his chest about how he snagged a grrrrl that looks like a real good hooker. K-words!
DreadedCandiru2,
Thanks. I thought about going about the process of thinking of some way something that was rented was better than something you owned, and it was tedious. John's compliment depends on the idea that he considers showing off Elly like he considers showing off a car or something else he owns, like a rental car might be a newer model car than the one he owns. The whole thing depends on the idea that a wife is property, and there is no way to look at it without it being very offensive.
The song rewrite was much more fun.
howard,
The whole thing depends on the idea that a wife is property, and there is no way to look at it without it being very offensive.
It was, as you said, very offensive when it first came out and it got more so as the years burned away. It's useful only as a look into a bygone and best forgotten era of our continent's history; its value as humor is non-existent.
DreadedCandiru2,
It was, as you said, very offensive when it first came out and it got more so as the years burned away. It's useful only as a look into a bygone and best forgotten era of our continent's history; its value as humor is non-existent.
I agree with you for the most part. Unfortunately, it is not a bygone and forgotten era.
This is an example I remember in the relatively recent past. Back in the early 1990s, billionaire Donald Trump made news because he was messing around with a woman named Marla Maples while he was still married to his first wife Ivana. At one point, Donald and Marla broke things off and Marla sought revenge by taking her story to the public. In an old TV show I used to watch called “Designing Women” she appeared, with the designing women cast members of the show taking her side, despite the fact she was the "other woman". As a part of the story, the lead actress of the show accidentally finds Donald Trump’s phone number and then tells him off for the way he treated Marla Maples and women in general while the studio audience cheered her on.
Ironically, the next year Donald Trump divorced his first wife, impregnated Marla Maples, and then married her after she had the baby. This led Donald Trump to say, “You know, it really doesn't matter what they write as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass." I always wondered if the people over at “Designing Women” thought they were saps, and how Marla Maples could possibly prostitute herself like that.
As much I may dislike today’s strip, where John treats Elly this way, I cannot deny that there are women out there who sell their beauty as a commodity to be shown off by rich and powerful men. Considering that real-life John worked in the medical field, which does pay pretty well, I imagine that Lynn Johnston ran into a few doctors’ wives who fit this description.
howard,
Considering that real-life John worked in the medical field, which does pay pretty well, I imagine that Lynn Johnston ran into a few doctors’ wives who fit this description.
I second that emotion; knowledge thereof must fuel the flames of her jealousy. It's not enough that she's a syndicated cartoonist that makes more than he ever will; she must NOT be cast aside without paying and paying.
Holy crud, you rock at filk!
Snow
Thanks.
Post a Comment
<< Home