Girlfriend Doggerel: I. Fontelyn Brotemy

Fontelyn Brotemy

A girl called Fontelyn Brotemy was my lover in 2010,

She had legs that went all the way down to the floor,

She was easy to please, but she was also easy to bore,

And she knew me as well as she had known plenty men.

I would rather have Fontelyn Brotemy than none at all.

I once asked her if she dreamt in color when she dozed,

And she told me she couldn’t see anything with her eyes closed,

And then she tied me down & did naughty things with a snake's rattle.

I took Fontelyn Brotemy to Ohio to meet my parents.

They asked her why she had dropped out of nursing school,

And she told them she believed in the golden rule,

And since no one had ever nursed her, she couldn't be bothered to care for patients.

I would rather have Fontelyn Brotemy than an open flesh-wound.

She brushed her teeth five times a day to fight off plaque,

And she had curves like an ATV race track.

She liked to role-play as Ahab & Moby Dick, & be repeatedly harpooned.

I took Fontelyn Brotemy to Rome to meet the Pope.

He asked her if she always met the leaders of world religions wearing a bikini,

And she told the Pope, I wanted you to fully see me.

She left Rome with a decent tan & a purse full of the hotel’s complementary soap.

I would rather have Fontelyn Brotemy than a bottle of Fernet.

When she left me for a Republican Congressman from Utah,

I asked her if she had used me for my oom-pah-pah,

And she told me keep my tuba in tune: I hadn’t heard the last of her yet.

Art by Olaf Mary from www.liamgolden.com

Correspondences: Craziest Couchsurfing Request Ever

That there's some more classic Whales Standing Up art from Mr Olaf Mary, circa 2004.
I've had nothing but good experiences with couchsurfing.com. I've stayed with lovely hosts in Europe, & hosted lovely travelers from Europe, North & South America. Sometimes tho, I get a request from a crazy person, & I think this one wins the award for craziest request. It was from a 20-year-old girl from Nova Scotia:

Okay. I am leaving _____ and coming to Berkeley to

set up camp. I am a crazy girl but I do have a lot of

guts. I am going to run my own cafe/resto/bar and it's

going to be government funded. Why the hell not? I have

a small debt to pay but what I would like to do is pay

for a massage course which I have also done in _____.

I need to be able to practise legally with a good

reputation in order to support myself while...Anyway I

am looking for a room in an artist commmunity/house.

Hippy, environmentalist. Forward mided people only no

scumbag student know it alls. No beurocratic bullshit.

I like clutter but not dirt. Not smelly. I want to be

able to pay $300 a month and be around

twenty-thirty-eight year olds. Only. If possible. Not

interested in having sex, already got somebody. But

really what I will be doing is starting a herd of wild

horses. I will be owning my own property soon and

living happily ever after. The end. Still need my

driver's liscence. Want have dogs off leashes and

outdoor cats. Goats are better lawnmowers than

lawnmowers. Etc. My mother. did this in Ohio where I

was born she did it well and I suppose she's happy

enough. I like it there. Good enough. anyway=I am

looking for a place to stay until I find my

room/roommate cafe job artist/activist housing

situation but no ugly minded people no bullies. I like

travellors but I don't want to live in a punk house.

Punk's dead happened in the 80s. We're starting new

now. Time to stop bitching and get on with it. So

anyway. If you are at all available for a chat on the

phone I am thinking of leaving on the twenty-ninth.

Could we please chat? I think I will be staying only

for three days at a time until I find what I am looking

for. I will be flying to SAn Fran and then taking the

bus to Berkeley. Will not have much stuff but will come

prepared. I'll need to buy a phone right away so if you

know of a cheap pay as you go phone right on. Let me

know if you can help me out at all. thanks a lot man.

bunches. -S_____

Nico Muhly's "The Only Tune" with Sam Amidon

Someone on Twitter named awork wrote "I generally like the music of NIco Muhly but the vocal on The Only Tune is obnoxious", which was promptly retweeted by both Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly. The tweet linked to lala.com, where I see you can listen to the whole piece, which you should if you haven't heard it yet, from Muhly's 2008 album Mothertongue. I heard them do it live twice last year in San Francisco & L.A. The picture is of a Humpback Whale tongue, get your mind out of the gutter.

The Only Tune Pt. 1: The Two S...

The Only Tune Pt. 2: The Old M...

The Only Tune Pt. 3: The Only ...

This huge ambergris that she found on the beach fifty years ago...

Pele's new twitter name is anbargris, & I recalled this picture of a humongous piece of ambergris that an old lady found on the beach in New York. From the Times in December 2006:

In this season of strange presents from relatives, Dorothy Ferreira got a doozy the other day from her 82-year-old sister in Waterloo, Iowa. It was ugly. It weighed four pounds. There was no receipt in the box.

Inside she found what looked like a gnarled, funky candle but could actually be a huge hunk of petrified whale vomit worth as much as $18,000.

“I called my sister and asked her, ‘What the heck did you send me?’ ” recalled Ms. Ferreira, 67, who has lived here on the eastern tip of Long Island since 1982. “She said: ‘I don’t know, but I found it on the beach in Montauk 50 years ago and just kept it around. You’re the one who lives by the ocean; ask someone out there what it is.’ ”

-"Please Let It Be Whale Vomit, Not Just Sea Junk", by Corey Kilgannon, New York Times, December 18th, 2006

The chapter on ambergris in Herman Melville's Moby Dick; or, The Whale is here.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks. [...]

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonour, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.

Exploding Whale

E-mails: Whale War!

Date:	Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:20:06 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"James Welsch" <_@itwaslost.org>
Subject:	Whale War!
To:	"Liam Joseph Olaf Worland Golden" <______@yahoo.com>, "James Eliot Quill" <______@yahoo.com>, "Samuel Tear Amidon" <_________@gmail.com>

For those who don't know, there's a war going on down in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary between illegal Japanese Whalers & the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, complete with ships ramming each other. Here's the latest news release from Sea Shepherd:

http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_070323_1.html

Peace, James


Below is a picture from Good Magazine, that shows on the side of a ship from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, all the illegal whalers they've thwarted:

____________________________________________________________________________________

Date:	Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:44:11 -0500
From:	"Sam Amidon" <_______@gmail.com>
To:	"James Welsch" <_@itwaslost.org>, "Liam Jospeh Olaf Worland Golden" <_____@yahoo.com>, "James Eliot Quill" <_________@yahoo.com>
Subject:	Re: Whale War!

i'm really glad i know about this now. although i don't like reading
things that defame the japanese. damn. really doesn't make me feel
happy. i had a dream last night that all three of you were in. we were
at some lame swanky person party. but it was nice to see you guys. you
all seemed to be doing well.

sam