Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Many people think that poetry has to be serious, long, confusing, emotional, hard to understand and difficult to decipher. It’s easy to forget that Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein were also world famous poets with their fun and silly, rhymey ditties. Today’s poem is written by the Hollywood actor, Woody Harrelson. He wrote the poem on social media, to a response to an Irish mother posting a picture of her daughter Cora, remarking on Cora’s resemblance to Woody.
Oh Woody! You’re delightful!
Those who dismiss you are just being spiteful.
I’ve enjoyed your many roles over the years.
But my favorite is when you were the bartender on Cheers.
On the show you fell for a girl who shares my name.
Listening to the song you wrote for her, I may never be the same.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Okay, you’re not going to believe this, but Woody Harrelson actually sang the Kelly Song to me personally!
It was 1986, my friend and I had gone to visit her grandma, who lived in Las Vegas. My friend, her cousin, and I went clubbing and wound up at Caesar’s Palace around 2 am. At the time they had a dance club called Cleopatra’s Barge, which was an actual boat set inside a fake lagoon inside the casino, and it rocked back and forth when people were dancing! We had just gone to the bar for water when two guys rolled up and one said, “Water! Let me buy you a drink! I just won eight grand on roulette!” That guy was Woody Harrelson.
Both guys (his friend was introduced as Clem) were clearly heavily intoxicated. We recognized Woody immediately, but the three of us were barely 21, and we were simultaneously impressed that a TV star wanted to buy us a drink but a little freaked out by their obvious drunken state. Woody explained that he had just finished his stint on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, which was taking place in the Grand Ballroom, and he got lucky gambling on the way to the bar, so he wanted to celebrate. Creepy Clem leaned over to me with a leer and said, “Yeah, that’s only the beginning of his luck tonight!” I literally felt my skin crawl.
Woody called the bartender over and said, “Get some drinks for my friends – wait, what are your names?” My friend replied, “I’m Lisa, this is Trish, and this is Kelly.” Woody whipped around, facing me, and declared, “Your name is Kelly?!” Before I could respond, he dropped to one knee, grabbed my hand, and sang the chorus of the Kelly Song! The entire bar erupted in cheers and applause. It was kind of fun to be the center of attention, but it was also mortifying, because the implication had already been made by Clem that the drinks weren’t free.
Woody hauled himself up to his feet, slung an arm around my shoulders, and declared, “This is my girl, Kelly!” He then sloshed half a beer down his front. “Clem, we gotta go back to the suite so I can change my shirt!”
Clem looked at Trish, who was still underage, and said, “How would you ladies like to continue this party upstairs?” Being the very sheltered girls from the burbs that we were, we totally panicked, dropped our drinks, and ran! We hit the ladies room and stayed there for about half an hour. When we finally ventured out, we spotted Woody and Clem heading to the elevator with two scantily dressed women. We silently wished them good luck and went home to grandma’s house to bed!! Not one of my better celebrity encounters!
Kelly, now knowing that you were safe, makes this an awesome story!! Thank you for sharing it, although Woody doesn’t sound so delightful. LOL