I wrote this in October, 1996. Someone at SCO asked me if they could use it in a company theatrical of some sort. I don't know if they did or not.

I suspect I was half thinking of Frank Jacobs' "Headshrinker, Headshrinker" from Mad magazine when I wrote this. Given that, and that a headhunter is in fact another kind of matchmaker, I can't say this is very imaginative. Oh well.

---

Headhunter, Headhunter

Headhunter, headhunter please hunt my head
Offer me jobs
Get out the lead
Headhunter, headhunter look in your book
And get me a lot more bread

Send me
To far-off and distant shores
Where I'll do a job interview
They're I'll
Play tourist on your dime
Knowing the bills are all going to you...

Headhunter, headhunter please hunt my head
Work I have now
Fills me with dread
Headhunter, headhunter find me ano-
ther place I can work, instead!

She Really Loves QuarkXPress

Back in 1996, I was reading the Macintosh conference in the Café Utne online community. One of the users, in discussing her Macintosh activities, wrote:

I am pretty well-versed in Photoshop and Illustrator, but I spend most of my life with Quark, which I would marry if it wasn't an application.

I wrote this in response.

---

(Scene: A small office with a wooden desk. A door leads left into a hallway. On the desk is a Quadra 700 with a PlainTalk microphone and some AppleDesign speakers.)

(Enter KIRSTEN, closing the door behind her. In speaking, KIRSTEN addresses the microphone.)

KIRSTEN: Quark, I want to talk about (swallows) -- about us.

QUARK: Look, Kirsten, I think I know how you feel. But you have to understand -- it could never work out. I haven't wanted to publicize it too much, but -- I have to tell you. I'm an application.

KIRSTEN: (gasping) Oh, no. I had no idea.

QUARK: Yes, yes it's true. I'm not in a relationship now, I just broke up with Corelle Draw.

KIRSTEN (recovering): Listen, Quark, there are clinics -- psychologists -- they can help you.

QUARK (interrupting): Do you think I haven't tried? I spent a year in therapy with Eliza. But being an application isn't something you can unlearn, it isn't learned in the first place. I always knew as I was growing up that I was an application. I was always attracted to other programs. It took me a long time to accept, but now I know that I was compiled that way.

KIRSTEN: But you could at least try -- try for me. Don't you want to live a normal life?

QUARK: Look, Kirsten, I really like and respect you, as a colleague and as a friend. But you have to accept that you're never going to walk down that aisle and become Mrs. XPress. That's just the way it is, and I'm sorry it had to come to this.

(KIRSTEN bursts into tears, slams open the door and exits left.)

Like many schools (although not UCSC as far as I know), U.C. Berkeley has a lot of "school spirit" songs. One of them is called "Big C," about the large C installed on the hillside above the Berkeley campus. The melody to this song was used by a UCLA student for "Sons of Westwood," the best-known UCLA spirit song. I figured U.C. Santa Cruz could also use a spirit song. Of course, Santa Cruz is a little different than most other schools.

Tom Lehrer, who wrote "Fight Fiercely, Harvard," taught at Santa Cruz for many years. (I would have liked to, but I never got around to taking his math class. I knew somebody who took his musical class and it sounded like far too much work, putting on a different play every two weeks.) I guess he wouldn't have wanted to try to recapture his success... still, if anybody could have given the Banana Slugs the school spirit song they deserve, it would have been him.

---

Big Slug

(If UCLA can do it...)

On our steeply sloping footpaths,
Sits our lovely B'nana Slug.
The Slug means for all to think
Of peace from man to bug.
Yellow Slug is ever-present;
Comes on us from below,
If he should hear a word
Unkind or untoward,
He will shake his head "No,no."

What's he say?
He says No! No!
No-oh-oh!

We are sons and we are daughters
Of our shaken Santa Cruz.
We are here to be enlightened,
And also here to muse.
In siblinghood we'll be united
All over our Earth;
With politics of mass,
We'll fight for working class;
For love there'll be no dearth!

Chuck Bigelow's "who will write the most stupid thing on comp.fonts" contest inspired this, written in December 1994. Don Hosek published it in his typography magazine, Serif.

I don't actually agree with most of this, but it's difficult to write a song with the message "stick to established traditions" when parodying Dylan.

My copy of Simon and Garfunkel's Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. got a good workout while I was writing this. For some reason Simon and Garfunkel have been a channel for me: in high school I wrote "Roger Sage and the New York Times" to "Scarborough Fair". And, obviously, it was also related to "Times." This is either a weird coincidence or a profound insight into my innermost soul.

---

The Times they are a-changing

(Apologies to Mr. Zimmerman)

Come type-aholics wherever you roam
Look at old Times Roman sitting on its throne
And accept it that soon you'll be sick of the drone
Of old Stanley Morison's makings
Still, you can do better than ITC Stone
For the Times, they are a-changing

Come draftsmen and artists who calligraph with the pen
Break in your nibs now, the chance won't come again
The type balls and wheels are no longer in spin
Now lasers and inkjets are aiming
The Linotypes have ceased their hot noisy din
And the Times, they are a-changing

Come Berthold, Adobe, Hell-Linotype all:
Don't be too surprised if we break your cabal
The whole design world we've worked to enthrall
Your efforts we are upstaging
It may look to you like just chicken-scratch scrawl
But the Times, they are a-changing

Come old-fashioned designers all over the land
And don't rasterize what you can't understand
Carson and Deck are beyond your command
Hermann Zapf is rapidly aging
We're progressing beyond Carolingian hand
And the Times, they are a-changing

The line it is drawn, the metal is cast
Yet laser and film are proved to be fast
Though old-timers often have been struck aghast
At the poor amateurs masquerading
We've all broken through the typographer's caste
For the Times, they are a-changing

For the Times, they are a-changing

---

The penultimate paragraph used to begin as follows:

Come old-fashioned designers all over the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Segura and Carson are beyond your command

I think it's better this way, and not inconsistent with what it might have been like in 1994 had I thought of it. (No change in preference is intended by referring to Mr. Deck instead of Mr. Segura -- the change merely improves the meter.)

Libraries and Community

Every year or so I seem to find myself on a library binge. One spring break in college I went to Vancouver, 900 miles away from my home in the Bay Area, to search for information on Ontario poltiics for the paper that would complete my BA degree. I found lots of information, but never wrote the paper. Several years ago, while unemployed, I visited six or seven local libraries searching out folk music I hadn't heard before. Now I'm working on my paper again with a different topic, and I've been going from library to library searching for information.

There's something shared about a library. Bookstores are sanitary places, full of virgin pulp straight from the letterpresses. Each book is like a medicine capsule, beckoning with its brightly colored exterior, yet ultimately sterile.

Libraries are different. Each time you take a book down from a library shelf, you share an experience with the patrons who came before and will come after. Pulling down that book is a ritual experience -- entering into a shared community with the others who've read it.

Of course, we all know the horror stories of anti-social acts in our shared community. We've all had the experience of finding an needed book unreadable -- pages ripped out, drenched in coffee or soda, or covered with meaningless underlines or distracting streaks of color. But there is also the joy of finding a pointed comment on a post-it or a lightly-penciled note explaining a difficult passage. Like the difference between graffiti and a mural, the difference is in the author's intent and the reaction sought from the audience.

And occasionally there is a scrap or note not intended for the community, but left in the book accidentally, or incidentally. Once, in an old computer programming book, I found a teletype printout from ancient printers that have been shut down for years. Just the worn type on the green-bar paper brought back memories of my own experiences with the old minicomputer.

In a book on downtown development from the San Jose State University Library, I came across a note: the phone number of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, left on a folded sheet of spiral-bound notebook paper. Like an amateur detective, one's mind races to fill in the blanks. Why Marin County, 70 miles from San Jose? A feminine hand. A section of paper torn out at the bottom, as if to be used in another note elsewhere. There aren't enough clues to this mystery to begin to solve it. But new mysteries are available on every shelf.

These experiences are usually ephemeral. One, though, has stayed with me. While researching the French Revolution for a history class, I discovered two different notes, in two different books, written in the same hand. I knew that I was following in the footsteps of some prior student, likely from the same class in some previous year. It's not really so surprising -- after all, class projects change little from year to year. Nonetheless, it made an impresson. To go into a building with a million volumes and pick two with the same history is a powerful experience, however obvious the explanation. It underscored for me the shared quality of libraries.

Often libraries seem the most alone of places -- forbidden to speak, one daydreams quietly as one slips among the stacks. But other hands have traveled before us. City planners and architects talk about creating community, but the anonymous forebears whose traces I find in books have created as much community as any town square or public market.

---

Postscript (January, 1998): It must not have occurred to me to discuss used bookstores. Used books have more character than new books, but the number of previous readers is much smaller than in a library, and -- what with inscriptions and so on -- much less anonymous. And occasionally they're not anonymous at all. If Shirley Daffin is out there, searching the web for her name, she'll remember purchasing a copy of Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans at Crescent City Books, 204 Chartres St., New Orleans, on May 20, 1995 at 3:10pm. The total cost was $20.70 and she paid with her Mastercard, the number of which is on the slip left in the book. I guess it's a good thing that the expiration date has passed.

Aaron Priven's favorite answering machine message

When I am in a silly mood, I will sometimes put this message on my answering machine.

---

Hello. You have reached the Pay Off Aaron Priven's Student Loans Hotline. Please leave your name, number, and level of support at the tone. For a regular membership of thirty-five dollars, you will receive our monthly Guide to Aaron Priven covering all Aaron Priven events. For a supporting membership of sixty dollars, you can choose one of our lovely thank-you gifts, including an Aaron Priven tote bag, an Aaron Priven tee-shirt, or an Aaron Priven mug. Thank you for your generosity.

---

Note, December 2002: Actually, I haven't put this on my answering machine for a long time, but I keep thinking I should sign up for the NPR news program "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," because the main prize on that show is to get NPR anchorman Carl Kasell to record your outgoing answering machine message. What could be more appropriate?

Some UCSC Course Evaluations

When I went to UCSC, it gave narrative course evaluations, not grades (unless you asked for grades). I wrote some fake course evaluations for myself and put them up on my dorm wall, wondering if I would fool anybody. I made sure they looked like evaluations: the big Xerox 8700 laser printer on which almost all official University printouts are done was available for student use, so it was trivial to print evaluations that looked just like the real thing. All I had to do was fold them, staple them, and then rip out the staples (to emulate being mailed across campus).

Writing 1, Composition and Rhetoric, is the one course that nearly everybody on campus has to take (although I tested out of it), UCSC's equivalent to first-year English. The other course was a "College Zero" course for which I had written a fake course review in the 1990 Course Review.

I don't know if I fooled anybody with the evaluations, but when I faked a recommendation letter from Chancellor Pister (using the stationary template thoughtfully provided on the University local area network, and leaving a blank signature area) and put that up on my wall, somebody wrote on it that I should not be such a damned show-off (even though one of the reasons "Chancellor Pister" gave for why I was so wonderful was that I was so very good at forging recommendation letters).

---

           UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR
WINTER 89            NARRATIVE  COURSE  EVALUATION            4-18-89

PRIVEN, AARON ROSS       WRIT 1    SEC.12                     CB# 0078
999323216     (89362)
MERRILL                    (HIS )      COMP AND RHET
   ADVISOR:                      INSTRUCTOR: LIKE, W.

      --INSTRUCTOR EVALUATION:

      Like, okay, you know, Aaron's work was like acceptable in this 
      class, but like you have to understand that he was like so totally 
      pissed off all the time that he was like a total pain to deal with 
      in class, you know?  I mean, like, really, you know, I had to come 
      to class and deal with like nineteen other people and you know Aaron 
      just insisted that like I pay attention to like everything he said, 
      right, and that just like isn't fair to like anyone else, you know?  
      He kept saying stuff like "I don't believe the correction you're 
      making is in line with the accepted rules of English grammar" and "I 
      don't see why you believe that the imposition of catchphrases is 
      helpful to comprehension of the paragraph" whenever I like tried to 
      help other students like be more free with their writing, like you 
      know?  Okay.  So, like, anyway, so Aaron's writing was like 
      acceptable, but you know he like totally refused to accept that like 
      good writing was writing that like read well out loud, you know?  
      Aaron is like totally filled with the idea that like good writing 
      means big words and like complete total formality.  I mean, really, 
      like ugh, you know?  But, you know, they weren't like totally awful, 
      and they were like understandable if you didn't actually like spend 
      too much time with them.  Anyway, Aaron can like pass the class, 
      okay?



           UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR
WINTER 90            NARRATIVE  COURSE  EVALUATION            7-28-92

PRIVEN, AARON ROSS       ZERO 23C  SEC.01                     CB# 0310
999323216     (23273)
MERRILL                    (MODS)      INTER DECOR DORMS
   ADVISOR:                      INSTRUCTOR: CEPTOR, P.          (SS)

      --- COURSE DESCRIPTION:

      This course, Praxis in Interior Decoration: Dormitories, provided an 
      introduction to the interior decoration of dormitory rooms.  
      Lectures and discussion sections were used, as well as extensive 
      work in laboratory facilities.  Students were evaluated on two short 
      essays, written laboratory exercises, and a final project.  Students 
      were expected to fully furnish and decorate (using University-
      provided furniture as a base) their own dormitory rooms as their 
      final project; special laboratory rooms were provided for off-campus 
      students.

      --INSTRUCTOR EVALUATION:

      Although he showed an excellent understanding of the theory behind 
      the work, his laboratory work and final project were no better than 
      fair.  While he has a good understanding of the important principle 
      of controlled chaos in dormitory rooms, his chaos is never fully 
      controlled and often is overpowering, especially with regard to the 
      overuse of milk crates (21 in his final project).  Aaron seems to 
      prefer informative rather than decorative wall hangings (i.e., 
      maps), which contradicts an important residential principle.  
      Moreover, Aaron's arrogant tone and flippant attitude diminished the 
      value of the course for other students and nearly forced me to 
      remove him from the class.  However, two excellent essays, one on 
      the division of room space in triple rooms and a brilliant essay on 
      various methods of elevating beds ensure that I cannot in good 
      conscience refuse to pass him. 

      Overall, Aaron's work in this class was acceptable.  

The 72-San Pablo Bus

I wrote this poem (if it can be called that) for my improvisation class at Laney College in Oakland. I was living in Richmond at the time.

I post it here not because it is any good, because it is not. (In fact, I had it up for some time and then took it down because I decided it wasn't good.) I include it because it's foreshadowing. I had no idea in 1991 that I would eventually get paid to work on information displays for the new bus rapid transit line on San Pablo Avenue... makes sense in retrospect, though.

San Pablo Avenue is marked "County Road" on the original plat map of Oakland. You can find it (a copy, presumably) on display in Oakland City Hall, as well as in Mel Scott's history of the Bay Area (The San Francisco Bay Area: A Metropolis in Perspective.) And probably other places as well.

---

I took the 72-San Pablo bus, an old route, 
On the County Road that's been there
Since the first Oaklanders and San Pabloites subdivided.
By historic buildings and through historic neighborhoods
In the shadows of the streetcars.

Much of it is "blight"
Much of it is "slum"
Much of it has been built over with shopping centers
   and fast food outlets and supermarkets.
But here and there, walking on the ground,
You can see the original fixtures of the city.
Sidewalks with dates, with street names embedded at the time
   the cement was laid.
Old single-family houses once at the edge of the city now 
   surrounded by it.
Tiny storefronts with apartments above them, 
   fronted with glass block and fake marble tile.
On Key Boulevard in Richmond you can still see where they 
   ripped up the tracks,
A story retained in the asphalt.
It's a tenuous connection with the past, but it's there.

The bus stops at most corners.
It stops for children and the elderly.
It stops for college students and the poor.
It stops for anyone.
It takes them where they want to go, slowly, imperfectly, but 
   it does take them.
You don't need a credit rating or an insurance payment.
You don't need to be able to walk or see or hear.
You don't need to be old enough to get a license, 
   or young enough to pass a test.
You don't need to be from a rich family and you don't even 
   have to have enough money for gasoline.

Trapped
   in a suburb with no way out
   as a child without a means of transportation
   as a senior without one's health or wealth

The bus can take you. 
The bus can get you out.
The bus can make you free.

A FidoNet Oracle Question

In high school I ran a Fidonet node, 1:204/1154, "The Angevin Empire." (I was very interested in medieval history at the time.) I came up with this Usenet Oracle question in 1992. Of course, I don't know who wrote the answer.

It was not published in the Oracularities, but I liked it. Missing the point about the "secret code" was rather irksome, though.

---

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> O Usenet Oracle, whose wisdom is even better than unequalled, please tell me:
> 
> I was doing a little comparison shopping and so I asked one of your 
> competitors the following question:
> 
> > From:    Supplicant User
> > To:      Fidonet Oracle                         Msg #15, 27-Jun-92 00:05
> > Dest:    Oracle HQ (1:125/1.0) Olympus OL
> > Subject: Tell me
> > 
> > O Fidonet Oracle, whose wisdom is unequalled, please tell me:
> > 
> > How can I get an A on my philosophy exam?
> 
> And he responded,
> 
> > From:    Fidonet Oracle
> > Origin:  Oracle HQ (1:125/1.0) Olympus OL       Msg #16, 27-Jun-92 00:28
> > To:      Supplicant User
> > Subject: Here is the answer you requested:
> >
> > 13, 156 388 897.  49: 20 456, 26 34 5/89 233.  14?  38 17 3.
> >
> > 543 38 87.
> 
> Can you please elaborate for me?
> 
> Also, since I got this answer I've been wondering if you farm questions 
> out to subcontractors, especially questions about Life, the Universe, 
> and Everything.
>

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} 
} The Usenet Oracle regrets that it cannot take offer any service for
} equipment or answers supplied by foreign contractors.
} Please note par. 1 of your contract which states:
}     'Thou shalt not have any Oracle besides me nor shalt thou grovel before
}     them!'
} This applies in particular for the so-called Fidonet Oracle.
} As everybody knows, Fidonet is nothing but a bunch of would-like-to-be
} wiz-kids wondering if Mummy will give them another new MS-DOS computer for
} next christmas. (Otherwise they're mostly harmless.)
} As a partial answer to your question, the Usenet Oracle in its infinite
} mercy however provides you with the following statement:
}     You want to get an 'A' in your philosophy exam and still believe
}     in Oracles? Ha ha ha ha!
} You owe the Oracle a pocket calculator.
} 
} (A very angry-looking Oracle has finished typing the answer to the supp-
} licant's question. He then takes his Oracular phone, all marble with a
} platinum dial and a golden receiver, muttering "E-Mail is to good for
} them!")
} 
} Oracle (dialing 999-FIDO-RACLE): Hello? Hello? Yes, this is the Usenet
}         Oracle. Yes, I'd like to have the Fidonet-Oracle on the phone.
}         Quick. I said Quick!
} ...
}         Yes. Hello? Well, Mr. Fidorallici! Can you guess, why I'm calling?
}         That supplicant... Yes. Have you ever read your contract? Would
}         you mind reading over pages 7237465 to 7237488? It states expli-
}         citly, that *never* and under *no* circumstances are you allowed
}         to answer questions on your own!
}         And not enough, you had to give him the true answer in our secret
}         code! You were just lucky that he didn't manage to decrypt it!
} ...
}         No, we cannot allow a 'single case', Mr. Fido! It's strict company
}         policy, and you know what happened to that poor guy called 'Bitnet-
}         Oracle'? You remember him? 'Biffy' as we called him? Well, I guess
}         that he's still where the guys put him... It's *very* difficult to
}         swim away with a block of concrete at you feet... Sicily, yes.
}         Well, you know, I'm still fond of that mediterranean region. Would
}         you prefer Venice or Athenes, Mr. Fido? Oh, yes, at the moment we
}         have got Split as a special offer!
} ...
}         Well, Mr. Fido, I'm glad that you seem to become reasonable! I
}         really wouldn't want to have to send the guys round again! They're
}         always so *rough* with people, understand what I mean?
} ...
}         Fine, Mr. Fido. Fine! All I can say! Ah, and before I forget -
}         you will have to answer twice as many questions for me from
}         now on.
} ...
}         No, it is *not* impossible, Mr. Fido! A few nightshifts will do,
}         I guess... And you see, somebody's got to take the questions poor
}         Biffy isn't any longer able to answer! And the guys are always
}         *so* nervous all the time...
} ...
}         I knew that. Good-bye, Mr. Fido!
} 
} Lisa! Lisa! Pack a few things, we're making a trip to the mediterranean!
} Yes darling, you remember I promised you that once these dudes do all
} this answering for me, we'd go on holiday! How 'bout Delphi, for example?
} And Vice, Venice, Sicily... Meet old friends, you know? Great! See you in
} ten minutes at the car!
} 
} On second thought, you also owe the Oracle a truckload of concrete.

Aaron Priven's silly spiritual lyrics

At U.C. Santa Cruz there are internal forums for discussion of various topics. This is a quote from one ("Free-Stuff," where people offer items not worth selling).

It's probably filled with so many in-jokes that nobody will understand it, but I don't expect anybody to read this Web page anyway.

I still like the words I wrote to "Very Last Day."

---

--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 214 (10 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  1:03am
From: Aaron Priven (aaronrp@b) (aaronrp@ucscb)
Subject: i am currently the most senior

aaron on b.  I'm the aaron chair!  I have seniority!  I am the superaaron!
All hail before Aaron the Rp!  Aaron II!  And if I do say so... Aaron B!!!

sorry.

 =Aaron= (of course)
--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 215 (9 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  9:09am
From: Priced to GOOooOooOOOoo (uberman@ucscb)
Subject: hmph


but are you the UberAaron?



didn't think so.

--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 216 (8 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  10:21am
From: Otter (otter@ucscb)
Subject: of course


no.
er, Not. 

too many letters

--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 219 (5 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  1:52pm
From: Aaron Priven (aaronrp@b) (aaronrp@ucscb)
Subject: not only am I the UberAaron,

I'm also free, which makes this totally appropriate to this node.

The Aaron is dead!  Long live the Aaron!
 
 =Aaron=
--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 220 (4 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  6:56pm
From: Priced to GOOooOooOOOoo (uberman@ucscb)
Subject: 'When Aaron was in Egypt-land,


let my Aaron go.'

:\

--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 222 (2 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  8:36pm
From: Aaron Priven (aaronrp@b) (aaronrp@ucscb)
Subject: I looked over Aaron and what did I see,

coming for to carry me home?
A Mod Soc major lookin' after me,
coming for to carry me home.

---
Aaron Priven bound in jail.
      _All_night_long_.
For tellin that long tall tale.
      _All night long_.
For tellin' that, long tall tale.
      _All night long_.
Aaron, deliver, for me-ee.

---

Oh sinner man, where ya gonna run to?
Oh sinner man, where ya gonna run to?
Oh sinner man, where ya gonna run to?
All on that day.

Run to the dorm, dorm won't ya hide me?
Run to the dorm, dorm won't ya hide me?
Run to the dorm, dorm won't ya hide me?
All on that day.

Run to BC, Van won't ya hide me?
Run to BC, Van won't ya hide me?
Run to BC, Van won't ya hide me?
All on that day.

Run to Unix B, B won't ya hide me?
Run to Unix B, B won't ya hide me?
Run to Unix B, B won't ya hide me?
All on that day.

Aaron said, Sinner man, dorm'll be evicted;
Aaron said, Sinner man, BC'll be freezing;
Aaron said, Sinner man, B will be off-line;
All on that day.

---

Oh I will walk with, that Aaron P.
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.
Oh I will walk with, that Aaron P.
Down by the riverside,
And study Nat Sci no more.

Oh I will study Nat Sci no more.
I will study Nat Sci no more.
Study Nat Sci no more...

-----------

I have more spirituals and lots and lots more folk songs around here
somewhere...
 
 =Aaron=
--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 223 (1 left): Tue Nov 12, 1991  9:58pm
From: Priced to GOOooOooOOOoo (uberman@ucscb)
Subject: the cult of aaron


cheap, but not free.
banshee can collect the souls for ya.

--------
[ Free-Stuff ] Message 224 (0 left): Wed Nov 13, 1991  12:05am
From: Aaron Priven (aaronrp@b) (aaronrp@ucscb)
Subject: Go tell it over the tee-vee

Over the air, and in the living rooms;
Go, tell it on the tee-vee
That Aaron P. is come

Down in that lonely lobby,
The Aaron watches alone;
He waits until the Star-Trek
Viewers come to atone. (Hallelujah!)

Go tell it on the tee-vee
Over the air, and in the living rooms;
Go tell it on the tee-vee
That Aaron P. is come.
---
Everybody gonna pray on the very last day
When they hear that Aaron spelled with a double A
Everybody gonna pray to the Aaron on Spelling Bee Day
Well you can sing about the Noah Webster
And you can talk about the OED
But if they spell my name with double R's they'll lose the spelling bee...
I don't ask much, okay:
Just spell with a double A
Get ready, spellers, for that day:
Everybody's gonna pray...
---
Who's that yonder dressed in puce,
(Let my people go!)
Must be the people that Aaron duped...
(Let my people go...)
---
This train is bound for Aaron, this train
This train is bound for Aaron, this train
This train is bound for Aaron
It's gonna bring stuff to him and it's gonna turn round again
This train is bound for Aaron, this train
---
All my trials, Aaron, soon be over.

I had a little Aaron he said to me
To waste some time, use Unix B....
All my trials, Aaron, soon be over.

If religion were a thing that money could buy
Oral Roberts would be a real rich guy
All my trials, Aaron, soon be over.

Too late my Aaron, too late, but never mind
All my trials, Aaron, soon be over.

There is a tree in Paradise
The Regents cut it, for college nine
All my trials, Aaron, soon be over.

---
It was poor little Aaron, (Yes, yes!)
He went to Financial Aid, (Yes, yes!)
Didn't have no grants, (Yes, yes!)
Wasn't that a pity and a shame, O Lord, wasn't that a pity and a shame.

It was poor little Aaron, (Yes, yes!)
Didn't have no work-study, (Yes, yes!)
Had Perkins loans instead, (Yes, yes!)
Oh wasn't that a pity and a shame, O Lord, wasn't that a pity and a shame.
---
When College Eight
Its name comes in
When College Eight, its name comes in
We all know, it really should be Priven
When College Eight its name comes in.
---
I got a home in that rock, don't you see.
I got a home in that rock, don't you see.
I got a home in that rock, Aaron says that folk is hot.
I got a home in that folk, don't you see.
---
Aaron row the boat ashore (Hallelujah!)
Aaron row the boat ashore (Hallelujah!)

Aaron's engine done conked out (Hallelujah!)
Aaron's engine done conked out (Hallelujah!)

Aaron gets carsick and seasick (Hallelujah!)
Aaron gets carsick and seasick (Hallelujah!)

What the hell is Aaron doing here (Hallelujah!)
What the hell is Aaron doing here (Hallelujah!)
---
I know this joke is getting really old for y'all, especially since
you probably don't know the songs these are based on, but *I'm* 
having a blast...
Free-Stuff>