Mark Caltonhill – May 2013

Mark performed three new songs at the May Stage Time & Wine

“A Change in the Weather”, “Korean Beauty” and “Lettuce Legs Blues”

Mark is a vegetarian and recommends Taiwan as a good place for non-meat eaters. A while ago, he had a dream, however, in which his legs had turned into lettuces, and he was being chased down the street by a heard of hungry sheep. Naturally, being a poet, Mark wrote a poem about the experience, which he has recently turned into a song. Although it is not blues music, it does begin “When i woke up this morning … ” and has a sad ending.

When I woke up this morning, my legs had turned to lettuce,
completely green from my toes up to my belt-ish
that was alright, as I was feeling peckish
so I showered in vinaigrette, and ate salad for breakfast.

I opened a restaurant, called My Green World,
serving vegetarians from all over the Earth,
the leftovers I fed to packs of rabbits
from which I took wool and made alpaca jackets.

I had to take care though, when going out of doors,
else I’d be chased by herds of herbivores,
by cows and sheep and other animals,
and by long-haired drug-crazed hippy cannibals.

With my lettuce ankles and lettuce knees,
I have to hide my legs from Cantonese,
from Japanese politely saying “itadakimasu”,
and Koreans hoping to make a little kimchi at last.

A salad-mad French artist named Toulouse,
screamed “Je voudrais manger your bloody lett-ouse.”
while a gentle German afraid of getting fat
asked if he could buy “ein bission kopfsalat”

With my lettuce stalk, sex can be quite hellish,
going from crisp to limp is a constant menace,
I still hope to find love, perhaps in Venice,
from a kinky Italian with a green-foot fetish.

Sometimes I hide my legs when I go on a date,
elsetimes, I just lean back and spread them on a plate,
nonchalantly saying to my sweetie,
“Darlin’, If you’re hungry, don’t wait, just eat me.”

At this point I finally awoke from my dream,
and from under the blankets, I heard a muffled scream,
“No, I won’t suck your toes, even doused in sauce,
in fact, get a lawyer, I want a divorce.”

The moral of this story, I’m sorry to say,
is that being a vegetarian, doesn’t always pay,
I kept the restaurant, but my wife got the rabbits,
which she cooked and ate, so there’ll be no more jackets.

Mark performs stand-up comedy and comic poetry and song under the names Mark Malarkey and 胡說馬克 at various locations around Taiwan. For more details refer to Mark Malarkey on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mark.malarkey.9

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