 By: Lord Buckley
"Well, like I explained to y'all before I ain't no drinkin' man. I tried it
once, and it got me highly irregular and I swore I'd never do it again. But I
promised my brother-in-law that I'd go up and watch his still while he went into
town to vote.
It was up there on the mountain where the map said it would be. Friends let me
tell you one thing though, it wadn't no ordinary still. It stood up that
mountainside like... like a huge golden opal.
God's yellar moon was a' shinin' on the cool clear evenin', God's little
lanterns just a' twinklin' on and off in the heavens and, like I explained to
you once before, I ain't no drinkin' man, But, temptation got the best of me,
and I took a slash... (wshew!... woah...) That yellar whiskey runnin' down my
throat like honeydew vine water, and I took another slash. Took another and
another and another. 'fore you knew it I'd downed one whole jug o' that shit and
commenced to get hot flashes.
Goosepimples was runnin' up and down my body and a feelin' came over me like,
somethin' I'd never experienced before, It's like, like I was in love,
("why don't we have a little love Mike [Utley]")
In love for the first time, with anything that moved... animate, in-animate it
didn't matter. It's like there's a great neon sign flashin' on and off in my
brain sayin, "Jimmy Buffett there' a great day a comin'..." 'Cause I was drunk.
Now I wadn't, uh, knee-crawlin', slip-slidin', reggy-youngin', commode-huggin'
drunk, I was God's own drunk, and a fearless man; And that's when I first saw
the bear.
He was a Kodiak lookin' fella 'bout 19 feet tall he rambled up over the hill
'spectin' me to do one of two things: flip or fly, I didn't do either one. It
hung him up. He starts sniffin' 'round my body tryin' to smell fear, but he
ain't gonna smell no fear, 'cause I'm God's own drunk and a fearless man. It
hung him up. He looked me right in my eyes and my eyes was a lot redder than his
was. It hung him up.
So I approached him and I said, "Mr. Bear, I love every hair on your 27 acre
body. I know you got a lotta friends over there on the other side of the hill.
There's ole' Rear Bear, Tall Bear, Freddy Bear, Kelly Jair, Relly Bear, Smelly
the Bear, Smokey the Bear, Pokey the Bear; I want you to go back over there
tonight and tell 'em I'm feelin' right. You tell 'em I love each and every one
of 'em like a brother and a sister; but if they give me any trouble tonight, I'm
gonna run every Goddamned one of 'em off the hill."
He took two steps backwards and didn't know what to think. Neither did I, but,
being charitable and cautious, well hell, I approached him again. I said, "Mr.
Bear, you know in the eyes of the Lord, we're both beasts when it comes right
down to it. So I want you to be my buddy, 'Buddy Bear.'" So I took ole' Buddy
Bear by his island sized paw and I led him over to the still. Now he's a'
sniffin' around that thing 'cause he's smellin' somethin' good. I gave him one
of them jugs of honeydew vine water, he downed it upright, (looked like one of
them damn bears in the circus sippin' sasparilly in the moonlight.) I gave him
another and another and another 'fore I knew it, he'd downed eight of 'em and
commenced to do the "bear dance." Two sniffs, a snort, a fly, a turn and a
grunt; and it was so simple like the jitterbug it plumb evaded me.
And we worked ourselves into a tumultuous uproar and I's awful tired, went over
to the hillside, and I laid down, went to sleep, slept for four hours, and
dreamt me some tremulous dreams And when I woke up, Oh, there was God's yellar
moon a' shinin' on the clear cool evenin'. And God's little lanterns just a'
twinklin' on and off in the heavens, And my buddy the bear was a' missin'...
yeah, you want to know somethin' else friends and neighbors, so was that still.
-- Spoken:
"That's a take. Wait, could uh.....you missed it?"
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