Friends of Grousers continue to display poetic genius

For the second week in a row, Rusty Parker and Frank Zappai garnered honors for their poetic work at Choka: The World's Longest Poem. Here is what the judges had to say about our boys' work this past week:

Rusty

but Samurais and show guns
anachronistic

Once again, the sharp shooter steps forward to break a blue rock. Nice play on shogun, unbelievable syllable pacing of anachronistic. So much so, in fact, that the birdhead and I believe that Rusty is actually the gun-totin' nom de plume of (you guessed it) Zappai. No matter. For his second week on the Wall, we're also officially granting him title of Sergeant at Arms for the Choka, meaning he is now fully entitled to all priviledges thereof and, that's right, he's now allowed to carry concealed. With the exception of suttonhoo, from now on don't assume that Rusty's just happy to see you when he bumps into you in the hall.

Frank Zappai

internet dates a big bust
judging from photos

Lots of great couplets from Frank again this week. This one is our favorite. Simple and straight forward. Lowhanded and smirky. What's not to like? Full credit. Bonus points for bringing up the first (and what may well end up being the only) serious point on the Discussion Board. You're not a man, Zappai, you're the man.

Jim again: Moreover, Frank Zappai won a first-ever distinction in partnership with a chokaer known only as "awgeez":

awgeez & Frank Zappai

If you have Girl Scout cookies,
Should you delete them?

Scouts' privacy policy
it's in the fine print

If you ever wonder why choka'ing is better than basketball, go back and look at this pair. This is the quintessential dunk and re-dunk. For the first time ever we award a twin WOF for couplets in combo. Awgeez makes the play on scout cookies, AND THEN ZAPPAI COMES UP WITH THE SCOUTS' SECURITY POLICY. Just awgeez? No. Just awesome? Yes.

Jim again: Once again I say it's time for all grousers everywhere to tip their hats to our intrepid poetry heroes. For their efforts, our boys get to proudly display the following badge of distinction on their respective web pages:



Frank's week, however, was not without its occasional misstep: The judges penalized him for his non-Zen allusion to the Hokey Pokey:

Frank Zappai

you do the Yokey Chokae
turn yourself around

Just kill my dog why don't you. Okay, the plural of choka is, choka -- like (one of what I'm sure is a class of your favorite pals) sheep. It's a poem, dammit, not a fricken antenna. But that's not what's the most disturbing. As you know, I'm an armchair philosopher -- the Archie Bunker of Zen as it were -- and one of the most disturbing bumper stickers I've ever seen in my life is: What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's all about? I mean, that's the kind of thing that just tears me up. Rips at me. I don't need to be reminded about it, I mean, I really don't, and that's precisely what you're doing here. (And seriously, what if it is what it's all about?)

Jim again: In our view, the judges here were a bit harsh with our boy Frank--but being the Archie Bunker of Zen as it were, we're just grateful they didn't call Frank "Meathead." But Frank now has the dubious distinction of being the first grouser to land his sorry behind in "Shame Alley"--and he is sentenced to displaying the following logo on his website:



Of course the other bad news is that the jig might be up on the Rusty Parker/Frank Zappai partnership. Suspicions have been raised that Rusty and Frank might in actuality be the same individual. Further detective work on this issue will be needed. Until next week . . . .