Randolph In 2005, I taught Computer Literacy at Beaulieu College in Kyalami. It was fun. During my time there, I helped some students produce a play, based on an extremely short story I wrote in my youth, called Pineapple George.
This was the transmogrified version, with undue credit. I hope this haunts their Google searches in the future.
The Story of Pineapple George (Thirty Minutes of Mayem and Bison Blood)
A Poem and a Play in the Theatre of the Absurd
By R West, C du Bois and T Veldman
This is the story of Pineapple George,
A hillbilly who lived in a faraway gorge.
His shirt was green with polka dots,
His pants a shade of mauve.
He had a dancing bear by the name of Fred
Who had an extremely large bump on his head
And Fred in turn had a cat, fancy that!
Who ran around saying “Yee haw!”
Pineapple George had a mother from France,
With extraordinarily long hair.
She would plait it and fold it and rub it with bison blood
But on Tuesdays it would be toothpaste.
Now on Friday the third, she opened the door
To a carrot by the name of Alfred Monsignor.
He was orange and yellow, with a green toupee
And had terribly bad breath (but excellent eyesight!).
As Pineapple George took to the streets
With maple syrup in his pockets
He thought to himself, “What should I do?”
And ran around singing in the parkade.
Once the police had arrested him
They threw him into the clink.
Pineapple George met a dog
With a coat made of fine green tartan.
The dancing bear came to bail him out
With his fancy cat in tow,
But George, Oh Lord, the caddish lad
Wanted to bring the dog with.
(Now here is Mr West
The Computerised English teacher
Telling us why it grammar not is correct
to end a sentence a preposition with.)
[Poetry Recital by Mr West – Spike Milligan’s Silly Old Baboon]
Meanwhile a weasel was robbing a bank
With a peanut pointed at the till lady.
He made off with several orders of
Chilli peanut butter sandwiches on rye bread.
(Because whole wheat seeds
Get stuck in your teeth
And white bread
Is bad for you.)
George’s mother was back at the house
Preparing for her daily outing
In which she poisons pigeons in the park
With ecstasy and cyanide.
After that, she returned to France
And went on a tour with the maid.
She went along the Champs-Elysées
And ended up at the Moulin Rouge.
She paid for her ticket
And had a seat
While the purple curtains
Opened …
[Dance routine by Jess and Anthea]
And whilst Bush sat in his lovely leather chair
He said “I was picked up by a Belgian man
And his 14 year old mistress with webbed feet
Who raised me to be evil!”
(Epilogue)
T: In case you missed it, our moral of this play is that you shouldn’t eat whole wheat bread because the seeds get stuck in your teeth, and white bread is bad for you.
R: But rye bread is hard.
C: Not if it’s from Woolworths!
T: Or if you use balsamic vinegar.
C: But what’s nice is if you grate some cheese and put it on some ham and into the grill for five minutes.
R: Also, I’ve had some white wine with my Welsh rarebit. Frankly, the English just can’t cook!