Don’t Hassle the Haiku October 6, 2006

Okay y’all, I’ve got problems. It’s something many of you have known for a while, but I have a strange addiction to David Hasselhoff. Like only having vegan food in the house, it’s Husband’s fault. He owns the entire Knight Rider series. I know them all. I watch them all. Repeatedly. Sure, I watched the episodes when I was a kid too, before Husband came along, but he is most definitely to blame for the newfound Hasselhoff love.

So, my bloggy friend Kristi turned me on to this site, The Daily Hasselhoff. They are sponsoring a contest, The Hasselhoff Haiku Showdown.

As Brassy Girl knows, I am a lover of the haiku. She and I originally met in a World Civilizations History class under the tutelage of one Father Girl-Lick (as in, that’s not how it was spelled, but how it was pronounced, and I am not joking). Fr. Girl-Lick had beady eyes and always sweated, but was otherwise a nice man and pretty thorough in his teaching (being Jesuit and all). I thought I would never forgive him for assigning me to read The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (in our class discussion of the book, I told him that when especially bad people went to hell, the devil made them read this book, and he LAUGHED, so yeah, he was all right). However, it turned out to come in handy when I read Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs.

So anyway, when Brassy Girl and I met in his class, one of our other book assignments was As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, which is actually a beautiful story of a woman in Heian Japan, and I highly recommend it, along with Memoirs of a Geisha, which has nothing in common with the aforementioned novel except that it is about a woman in Japan. The movie version of this book is okay, but why did they ever think it was an acceptable idea to cast Chinese women in the pivotal roles???????

So anyway, part of the assignment for As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams was that we were supposed to compose a haiku. As if the 5-7 page paper wasn’t enough of an assignment, now Fr. Girl-Lick wants us to be creative? Well, Brassy Girl and I did the said assignment and then during class discussion, she passed a note to me in class that was written in haiku form, which I thought was funny and returned the gesture. This turned into a long standing tradition of her and I passing notes to one another in class that were written in haiku form. Examples:

This class is boring.
Will David ever shut up?
What is Steph wearing?

Oh, I drank too much.
Why, oh why did I sign up
For an 8:30?

So, yes, we were nerds, you can say it, it’s okay. But my love of haiku has never faded, and now, there is a haiku contest to spout love for one Mr. Hasselhoff! I love it! There was a limit of ten haikus and I sent in 9. Not too shabby, eh?

Which one should I do?
Wax my chest or perm my hair?
Can’t wait to decide.

Watch my video.
I can’t stop this fee-ee-ling!
What is wrong with me?

The car chases me.
I must get away from it.
Turbo Boost! Oh, yeah.

My new slogan is
Don’t hassle me… I’m oiling.
You know it’s so true.

Michael, I love you.
I long for you to tell me
“KITT, need you buddy.”

In Knight Rider, I’m
A Man Who Does Not Exist.
(Except in your dreams).

Yes, I’m Michael Knight
Check out my unbuttoned shirt.
And sexy tight pants.

My bitch ex-wife sucks.
And so do all the airlines.
I miss Knight Rider.

I am Michael Knight.
I am David Hasselhoff.
I’m not Rick James, bitch.

Please, compose your own. But only after watching my favorite of the Hasselhoff options on YouTube (For the love of Turbo Boost, people, he jumps with Aborigines and sticks a fish in his mouth while dressed as a polar bear!):

Care for a few more laughs? Watch these guys’ take on the same song. Certainly not as funny as the illustrious Mr. Hasselhoff himself, but pretty entertaining. If you’re not into the first 45 seconds, at least make sure to watch from the 1:18 to 1:32 timer mark. It’s hilarious. Like I said at the beginning of this post, y’all, I’ve got problems.