Bluegrass Barditudes

I have no idea what I was thinking about when the topic of Shakespeare and bluegrass crossed my mind; I mean, I teach English and I play bluegrass, but that's not really a good reason to be putting the two together. Hell, lots of surgeons play golf, but I sure hope if they have me laid open they're not thinking about golf swings or something. How the hell would that be?

"Fore!" the guy would hollar, and then with the phizoclampet whhoossis he's holding, he'd blast your pancreas out of yer insides and right into the garbage pail.


Unless he opened his stance and sliced it into the hallway. I hate it when that happens.

And I have to confess that I am not really in a funny mood; death and destruction have been very much in evidence around here lately, and I think I may have slipped a cog or something, because I have had sudden and almost uncontrollable urges; one that I can write about is to bark at rude people and maybe even bite on them a little bit.

Maybe I have situational Tourettes. Anyhow, let's take a look at some of the bard's stuff, done bluegrass style.

Him: To be or not to be; that is the question!
Us: Poo or get off the pot; ya either have to go or not!

Him: Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I might say goodnite until it be morrow!
Us: How can I miss you if you never leave? And take that .44 outta yer sleeve!

Him: The lady doth protest too much, me thinks!
Us: Quit 'chur bitchin and git in the kitchen!

Him: Is that a dagger I see before me?
Us: Is that a booger I see before me?

Him: Romeo, Romeo! Wherefor art thou, Romeo?
Us; Hey, Tilly! You over here or down in Philly?

Him: GOodnight, sweet prince! And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Us: Goodnight Irene, goodnight, Irene, I'll see you in my dreams...
Him: Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all...
Us: She came on down the stairs and tossed back her long yeller hair, and her cheeks were as red as a rose...

Him: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
Us: She came into the room where she met her final doom, and I ain't gonna be treated thisaway...

Him: Life is a tale told by an idiot, who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Us: Yonder stands little Maggie, with a dram glass in her hand....

Well, maybe next time we can slap together a little play, something like "Hamlet meets Macbeth and gets killed right away because he's a whiney girlie-man, and then Ophelia starts cheating on her new beau Hotspur, who can't do nothing but get drunk and sing off-key, and Macbeth gets really mad and is going to blast the bejesus out of both of them with his .44 but some dude named Shylock buys him off just long enough to steal a pound of headcheese and they all get shipwrecked and land on a strange shore where they meet a boy who never grew up and a bunch of Indians and a large alligator with a clock in his stomach, and it all looks like it will end badly for most of them, but that's where the surprise ending comes in because instead they are all blown to kingdom-come by a meteor and only the alligator survives, except that the clock never does keep the right time after that."

And they say that drama is so hard. pah!