Sales Pitch: Spat

By Matthew Vandenberg

This is a story, told through rap.

A young man is working in a suitcase store, and trying to sell suitcases.

But he wants to talk about more than bags.

Written at the beginning of the Trump era, this series of verses is heavily political.

Is it set in Connaught Place, New Delhi or Bondi Junction, Sydney? You decide. It doesn't matter.

There's a sequel to this, that's in prose, if that's you're thing. So maybe get that instead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685830755

Book preview

Dopp Kit

When I open up a store like a Dopp kit

it's like I see soaps and some top fit chicks/

And the place of business

is my office/

One sits/

Call me a therapist/

That's me? I'll be a therapist/

Catch me tripping like I ran on a shoelace

ev'ry time she opens up like a suitcase/

(Hopefully not open up as in 'shoot up the place')/

All the time that I'm away from her cute face

is like a trip to Iran in a suitcase I don't have to take/

I feel like I'm in a confined space if not in an excited state/

But fuck censorship  

when I sense a chick/  

It's a brand new day  

and I work for it/  

I don't work for pay/

I could work from your home if you asked me to stay/

Was that a hard or soft case that you wanted to take away?/

I'll eat in. Are you open 'til late?/

That's my boner that you're touching. Will that be all today?/

Could you fuck me on the till so that float[']s away/

(Fuck money!)  

We'll get high and make a moat. Thanks for coming today/

I do recommend protection. How would you like to pay?/

Plastic? Just let me get a rubber coz I wrote 'cash was paid'/

And free love, agreed, is better. Have a wonderful day and dates/

******

- Fifth Harmony - Work from Home ft. Ty Dolla $ign (2016, February 26)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GL9JoH4Sws)

- Crazy Town - Butterfly (Official Video) (1999)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FEDrU85FLE)

Separation

You're shittin' me

but I've been through shit all my life  

so don't try to out shit me/

More shots than Fiddy  

that I took at pickin' and hittin' on a chick  

who then dissed me/

DJ, Spin the disc please/

Keep shit optimistic, 'fore you release the piece o' plastic . . .

Fuck separating friend and date  

or church and state/

Preach free love from the pulpit/

My Bible's a boner in my pocket/

(Use UV light to read the writing)/

I'm idle like a stoner when I see your eyes in their sockets/  

Your electric gaze has me shocked when I get an idea to look into your eyes and a mental metal key to the lock on your attention span spanning my electrons,

like elections spanning the years and like my peers I #FeelTheBern, like political awareness is hot, and we're wet when my views are firm like an erection/

Come to the polls/  

She says 'pole?' and 'I'm on it'

'Tease me like a pastor at the pulpit preaching to a choir of adults,

who sing and who sigh as a result'/

This is not just sex, it's a revolt/

This is not fresh/

Better yet, your hot breath is inflammatory/

Deep breaths can stop the bankers betting with our pennies/

One to ten: stop a recession/  

And this political endeavor is just mandatory whenever the heads of a generation are lifted from the sand and set down in observatories/  

Observe me/

There's no cash in the space that fascinates us:  

like that between my face and your face

The transaction's just enacted using work and heat from a race far greater than a rat race/

But then . . .  

My head's spinnin' like a free third wheel/

Maybe I'd rather be attached and not a free third wheel/

Spin it/  

Maybe I'm a disc of the DJ/

Maybe I'm a sad song/  

Maybe I'll be replayed/

Sing it/  

Maybe some statistics need re-saying/

Loneliness can kill/  

So tell everyone to keep playing/  

Keep playing/  

This ain't even fuckin' deep/  

I just wrote it in my sleep/

Ev'ry catnap I keep praying for a date/

I'm a dog but I'm lookin' for the female make/

Make waves/

Make waves/

Spin again/

No breaks/

I didn't stumble,

I was flirting/  

I didn't mumble,  

I was hurting/

I didn't bungle up my lines,  

I was writing 'bout ways not working as a means of flirting/

It's for a co-worker I'm working and this work's addressed to her/

I'd love to be with you/  

My issue is with ever having to say:

'I didn't miss you, I missed missing chances, so dismissed you, ditched you and made other plans best'/

I didn't kiss you, and haven't caressed your breasts yet/

It's like I'm speaking to a brick wall that's the fairer sex/

It's like defenses are dispensed like they're money for renting the space between us - hard and heavy as a Hartmann case - so we're never together/

The space ain't worth the rent/

I wanna lift chicks up like they're weights and they're fairly wet/

If they fall on me then fine'ly we'll have daring sex/

In my head my muse says:

'If the weights are a fence you stand hard on, waiting with a hard-on, then kill the limbo and go for broke with new lingo you wrote'/  

If floats were made of ice, they could melt and I'd be fine with your hands on mine, but I don't know if you're cold as ice/

(That's prob'ly bold and wise)/

I'm almost as old as boys in boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and Five: banned now from being a boy for life/

I wanna be a buoy. You can come much to keep me on high/

Then you'll make the space between us something that my senses will like/

The plane I'm on is taking off . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, and you may now move around the cabin. However we always recommend to keep your seat belt fastened while you’re seated.

******

- Anna Ternheim - Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely (2015, December 18)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t2paMM0QT8)

- Anna Ternheim performs Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely at the Nobel Banquet 2015 (2015, December 6)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBjo09dcKc)

- Backstreet Boys - Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely (1999)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBt8fN7mJNg)

- 50 Cent - 9 Shots (Official Music Video) (2015, August 15)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP9AboOlEY0)

- AirOdyssey.net

In-flight passenger announcements

[Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, and you may now move around the cabin. However we always recommend to keep your seat belt fastened while you’re seated.]

https://airodyssey.net/reference/inflight/#takeoff

- Hartmann

https://shop.hartmann.com/travel/carry-ons

- Twitter

#FeelTheBern

http://twitter.com/#FeelTheBern

Cockpit

I enter a cockpit/

I don't know how I got into it/

I'm on a plane but it's a place for some conflict/

On one display unit's a letter to a chick I dig/  

The pilot asks me if I'd like to deliver it  

to the woman I'm sitting with/

And now I know that he's the bro wit' ambition who digs the chick that I'm wanting to kiss/

Yeah, that is so hard to miss/

And this dude's so hard to diss/

This guy is flying a fuckin' plane,

while I think I was trying to take a piss,

but now in time I think I might try to take the piss out of him/

But I see yellow text. And it says here he's serious,

and I see green text, and it says here that she is/

He says:

'That's the altimeter setting. Yeah, my girlfriend is on high/

The other green text implies I'm positioned by her thighs like jets'/

I say: 'Okay, I'm out'/

'That's what I said,' he says/

Forget a bout, because I've seen his pecs, and I'm a lover not a fighter, but still fighting for a place in the affections of another lover/

How the fuck can this guy work out while he's flying fighter jets?/

How the fuck am I to work out how to impress a chick best when the fingers of the competition are this deft?/

Replace the cockpit with a cunt or clit and he'd def make the chick wet/  

Coz he knows how one can go down, but would he ever do this best?/

I don't know what to think next, coz this ain't Romeo and Juliet/

He says: 'we're right above Bermuda. How do you like different angles?'/

I say: 'So, is there a problem? Let's discuss it from a right angle and handle it respectfully'/

He says: 'Sometimes when approaching triangles you may find no fine right angles. Just deliver the letter please'/

Okay. I'll disappear. I think I'll jump into the bitter breeze and sea/

He says: 'I've got a parachute for you too. On it are more love letters of mine she'll read when you leave,

coz I'm a poet too. I write like you wouldn't believe'/

I bow my head in shame/

I know of no refrain,

and I'm covered in pee/  

'I can be warm' is all I say/

But he's doing forty push-ups after helping me escape the plane in a way that won't lead to my fate/  

Arrrrgh! He's a suitable date!/

Still, maybe he compensates a small penis with massive planes . . .

Oh wait, that's not a lever that I'm watching him shake/

Why can't it be a woman pissing on me this way?/  

******

- Stitches - Shawn Mendes (Cover) | Madilyn Paige and Maddie Wilson (2015, September 4)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alMp9rAfWO4)

Airborne

You saw me when I sorely went and entered the plane I'm stayin' in/

You sat next to me but I guess you weren't weighin' up no options coz they didn't exist/

But as I look at the way to well below the plane, I'm thinkin' I'm a misfit and I'll miss fitting into this plane wit' you, babe/

I could use some air, but I don't mean wind but your breath on my face/  

I wish this was a tandem skydive. I wish you was a fan of MY drive/

I wish the parachute was a sheet neither of us needed and we breed and make babies over seas, overseas/

Coz I'll fall for you like I'm on a trip to my knees/

I'd make a ring in the sky with other divers - and diners - and I wouldn't care just where your fingers lie, as long as I can get in formation with your other mates and find my way to the space right between your thighs/

I'd prob'ly strike like a snake while I'm in the sky,

and moving at a rate sure to get you high,  

and you'd come fast if I asked you to be by my side/

Maybe I can face my fate without you if I make myself believe that my weight's me waiting to see you again,  

and I'm falling into space to be weightless, to wait less, and maybe soon you'll be my Martian waitress, but serving me your breath in a suit we're both waiting in/

But it seems like you'll be leaving on a jet plane as soon as I exit this stage where I seem to be based/

If this is base camp I wish to be exploring your face/

I want that more than a raise, I . . .

really wanna lick your clit like my tongue's a flag raised. Fly!

I'm standing at the edge of a plane/

I'm planning to be turning a page, but this way's a little intensely strange/  

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