I am proud to be Canadian.  Canadians love hockey, right?  Let’s rephrase that to be accurate: many Canadians who are into sports love hockey.  Unfortunately for hockey night in Canada, I grew up a sci-fi geek with zero appreciation for any sports whatsoever.  This meant I became very unpatriotic when hockey interfered with Star Trek.  In May 2001 (when I was 13), major interference occurred.  The airing of the series finale of Voyager was delayed by a hockey game in overtime.  I knew that once the hockey game was finally over, Voyager would be the program we joined “already in progress”; I’d have to wait for a re-run to see the whole episode.

While I waited, I wrote this song (to the tune of “The Good Old Hockey Game”):

Chorus: Oh the bad old hockey game

Is the worst game you can name!

And the worst game you can name

Is the bad old hockey game!

Verse 1: The day is fair, I couldn’t care,

It’s Voyager tonight!

Tension grows, we sit in rows,

And await the treat of the night!

The adults call and the children fall,

Before the blaring screen,

Someone roars: “What a bore!”  It’s a dreadful hockey scene!

Chorus: 

Verse 2: Will Chokotay die?  Will Janeway fly

The Starship home to France?

Will the baby live?  Will Seven give

Her emotions one more chance?

Will Neelix come?  Will the doctor become a normal man on Earth?

We could’ve known, but the show’s been thrown into hateful hockey turf!

Chorus:

Verse 3: It isn’t fair, they couldn’t care,

For them it’s all okay,

But what of us?  We’ll make a fuss,

They mustn’t have their way!

We’ve waited long, so I sing this song,

In hopes of good TV,

We’re in suspense, but they’ve no sense,

It’s a hockey catastrophe!

I have been a big fan of musicals since I was a little girl.  As a singer myself, and a despiser of mundane reality, I found the idea of someone bursting into song in the middle of a street and having everyone around them start singing and dancing hugely appealing.  My favourite thing about going on trips with my choir was that life really could be like this to a degree.  We sang in restaurants and airports.  I could start singing something as we walked down the street, and hear the harmonies swell up spontaneously around me.

That being said, there were certain songs in the most classic Broadway musicals that gave me a sense of disconnect. I discovered Guys and Dolls as a teenager and, being a modern woman, couldn’t for the life of me understand why Adelaide was clinging on to an engagement that seemed to be dragging out indefinitely.  “Adelaide’s Lament” is a wonderful song for the heartsick little lady been done wrong by a gambler.  I, however, felt I had better reasons to catch an emotionally stimulated illness.  So I filked “Adelaide’s Lament” into “Author’s Lament”.  Do feel free to sing out loud if you know the tune;-)

The average unpublished author

Living to entertain

Due to that long frustration will react

With tense and psychotic symptoms

Difficult to restrain

Affecting the brain, blood and the cognitive tract

In other words, just from waiting around for one little “yes” to transmit

A person can develop a fit.

You can spray her wherever you figure the skin is sizzlin’ worst

You can give her a shot for whatever she’s got

But you’ll burn up first

If she’s tired of serving the coffee for successful gits,

A person can develop some fits.

The author remaining unread

Just in officialness

Shows a moronic tendency, see note

Chronic complaining syndrome

Hostile or mutinous

Involving the lips, the tongue, voice box and throat

In other words, just from worrying

Whether the manuscript’s miss or hit

A person can develop a fit.

You can feed her all day

With the chocolate drops, and the peppermint,

But the comfort food never gets anywhere nearer than pocket lint

If she’s getting a kind of a name for herself and it ain’t in print

A person can develop a fit.

And furthermore, just from stalling and stalling

And stalling the selling pitch,

A person can develop a twitch

A twitch, a red flaming itch,

With the rashes, and the gashes

And the urge to roll round in a ditch!

Lack of intellectual property

And the feeling she’s losing her wit

A person can develop a bad, bad…a really, really bad fit!