Humorists, Homage to the Greats!

Kathleen has begun scribbling limericks to pay homage to great humorists and tacking them up on the wall here in her slap-dash manner for stand-up comedy night here at the pub. All the while, she is thinking that caricatures would be nice, framed as they often are in popular establishments like Molly's Pub, lined up in rows tidy enough to please a Pottery Barn™ set designer. Unfortunately, this is a skill set not yet present among any of our pub's patrons.

So I wrote a limerick book and knowing how much Jay Leno likes limericks from previous episodes of The Tonight Show, I spent half an hour polishing an email to send him.

Their reply?: An autoresponder

As says the actress on the insurance site,

So I'm inspired to make another addition to "humorists":

An Ode to Jay Leno

I've enjoyed your show many a year
And know limerick poems are held dear
By some writers on staff
It's a quirky, odd craft
So I thought I would make myself clear.

I just LOVE writing limerick verse
Cause they're snappy and pithy and terse.
It's a form that I love
Every time I think of
All the garbage produced that's much worse.

It's hard to fit all that you say
Into five tiny lines, by the way,
Can you do it? Of course!
But you have the recourse
To a stable of help, I daresay.

As Hemingway said, it is best
To keep your words short, so I rest
My case with this word,
If you want to be heard
Be lighthearted and keep it compressed.

I am certain one day there will be
Some prescient celebrity
Who will LOVE all my work
And provide me the perk
Of a hearing on prime time TV.

A third of a million each year
Come to visit my website. It's clear
That a lot of folks like
A good laugh or a strike
At the boring productions they hear.

So here is the friendly reply
From their autoresponder. And why
Do they shield themselves so
When you think they might know
Without viewers their show goes bye-bye?

Chapter 4

So here is the friendly email from the network where Jay Leno is produced:

Thanks for your email. NBC values your comments, but unfortunately, due to the volume of emails we receive, we cannot respond to each one. Please check our FAQ section to see if your question is answered there:

/faq/

Since we cannot accept unsolicited scripts, show ideas, or other creative material, any such submission by email will be deleted without being read.We would also like to hear more of your opinions about television and the programs you watch. If you would like to share your feedback with us by becoming part of our viewer panel, please visit the following link:

http://www2.rresults.com/1809998/index.cfm?s=50

Once you join, you'll occasionally be invited to take Internet surveys, which are fun to do and usually take about 5 minutes to complete. The information you give will have an impact on the television programs you enjoy.

Thanks for logging on to NBC's websites.

Well, that was fun. They invited me to participate in a survey! :)

This room is not as rollicking as the establishment down the street where humorists may be "blue" or "green" depending upon the country of origin, and where no bowdlerization is attempted. However, here at Molly's Pub, Bowdler is a frequent guest, our mithers knit in amiable gaggles, and the wee ones roam the hallways, a trail of popcorn in their wakes. Take care you do not trample one on your way to the Sports Room with the HDTV.

There are many comedians, poets and limerick authors that Kathleen admires. On this page, by and by, a plethora of them shall be duly noted with original limericks in their honor. Humorists, funny poets, limericks writers, and humour writers in general give the public relief from the nightly news, which is often lugubrious—or alternatively—hysterical for all the wrong reasons.

Life is often a circus and humorists are the ringmasters who show us what is funny and why. Without their wit, we would be left to our own devices, chuckling at the use of "nucular" or "irregardless" by persons whose "IVY degrees" might have been expected to innoculate them against such pronouncements—they must have been "legacy."

Now hereabouts, we have from time to time transgressed the King's English as well. In fact, a non-existent word lingers here at the pub at this very moment, which is different from a neologism in that the latter is placed intentionally.

If things settle down a bit, we shall see to expunging it. Howsomever, should you be the very first to find it, we will send you a free copy of our just released book, The Pocket Book of Limericks. Indeed, it is so new it is yet hot from the presses and we are reduced to using potholders.

Humorists, poets, and limerick authors so honored in these pages may be living or departed, depending only upon Kathleen's whim. If they are departed enough to cede us their corpus (of work, that is), we shall endeavor one day to include a snippet here or there from the great ones.

Until then, we shall stick to our own original reflections on those august personages or those contributions of our good friends who have shared their witticisms merely for your amusement and for the glory of appearing on the walls of http://www.here-be-limerick-poems.com.