Throughout human history, there have been feats that gave us pause; epic heroes who demanded public declamation. When the forces of Illium sacked Troy, Homer sat down to immortalize the event in flowing prose. When Washington swam the Delaware and beat up Benedict Arnold, everyone got together and built a huge stone copy of his bizarrely-shaped dick. All so that we would never forget.
And today, we carry on the tradition of canonizing our ubermensch. After all, when a guy lands a thousand-ton hunk of metal filled with screaming people on a boat-filled strip of water and doesn’t bat an eye, a Wikipedia page and Facebook fan page are certainly in order. But I can’t help feeling that those aren’t enough for Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III. The man was a first chair flautist, for Christ’s sake.
Screw keys to the city; screw inaugural invitations. It’s time to rock a dedication old school. Sully, this one’s for you.
The Epic Ballad Of Sully And The Devil-Birds
Sing, O Muse! Of a man most valorous and righteous
Of he, the winged son of Danville
Who is even now flying high out of LaGuardia,
That morose beef patty between two moping buns—
Sullenberger—Sullenberger the demi-God
Who was thrust that day, all unknowing
Into the airborne lair of Skree, the SatanGoose,
And her dastardly horde. The birds, all joy-blind
From a day of pecking orphan’s eyes
And honking on overpasses so as to cause accidents,
Hurled at Sully’s plane full speed,
The twisted evil in their feathery hearts
Drawing them straight and true to his mighty engines.
Sully and his crew and human payload,
Still freshly of the air, thoughts astir with the hope
Of nine salted peanuts and Wall-E on the in-flight,
Were ROCKED! By the impact of the traitorous fowl.
“Hitler’s beard!” cried he, bronzed chest rippling,
“’Tis the long-awaited death of Skree I now sense,
and she means to drag us to Hades with her!”
So broad grew his chest with a mournful keen
That his tie ripped free of his swelling neck,
His coat opened in a jagged V, buttons springing forth
To rebound off the faces of swooning crew.
“To arms” cried he, “To Teterboro! To victory!”
Spit flew from his mouth, caught in his drooping mustaches
And reflected a wan sun. He cried out for the Tower.
“Oh great Sully,” came the reply “whose name does not sully,
but exalts all ears it deigns to enter, we on the ground,
Our pants heavy and sopping with the poop and pee of fear,
Can do little but move planes around, so feeble are we.”
Dashing the radio to the ground, Sully grimaced,
The silence of his crippled plane filled by the triumphant flute
Blowing as if to wake the dead in his Mensa-level brain.
“So it must be,” said he, “and so shall it be.
We seek refuge with Poseidon.” All in earshot gaped,
Aghast at the godlike moxy of this mortal man,
And some doubtless recalled the whispered legends of his birth,
The tales of his father’s cuckolding on the prong of the Sea god.
Would Sully, half-son of the watery god, be welcomed?
“Brace for impact,” was all he said.
Great Poseidon! Shaper of the world, both man and woman,
Help me tell now of Sully’s entrance into you
How that great steel length swooped low
As if to plow you something proper,
Then glided into your watery cooch
Never grazing a wing nor disturbing the ferrymen
That clung about your lips to stare in fear and wonder
At the life-giving consummation of Father and Son.
The beleaguered plane rocked and shuddered,
Readying to spill its human seed upon the deep.
“And so,” breathed Sully, biceps putting tree trunks to shame,
“As you had your way with my mother,
So have I had my way with thee.”
And he left the cockpit then, so aptly named,
Trailing a palpable grace and strength
No ethics book could hope to contain.
The sun, O Muse, that hung then in the rosy sky
Set on the death of Skree, fowl most foul,
And on the reunion of Sully and his godhood,
On a Hero who strides among us,
Humbly, with balls the size of giant balls.
Sorry Chesley, but until the Treasury Department approves my design for the zillion-dollar “Sullybuck,” this’ll have to do you. I’d recommend printing it out and framing it above your mantelpiece, or maybe getting someone to crochet it into a scarf.
Here’s hoping you pilot every plane I ever fly in.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Captain Sullenberger, Epicness, Heroes, New York, News, Planes, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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October 1st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
[...] rerun of this: The Epic Ballad Of Sully And The Devil-Birds: Sing, O Muse! Of a man most valorous and righteousOf he, the winged son of Danville…. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I am going to have to sign up to receive your feed. This is good stuff.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:37 am
After reading the article, I feel that I need more info. Can you share some more resources ?
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 am
We need someone of sufficient awesome to read this.
I say we get the voice of Brain from Pinky and the Brain. His is a manly, powerful voice.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Brilliance..absolute brilliance. Worthy of a cover by Ensiferum.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
who knew you had such talent???… epic wonderfulness!!!
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
i held it in until i reached “the cockpit then, so aptly named”, and then i cracked the fuck up.
you, sir, are brilliant.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 am
There needs to be a video of a live reading of this ballad
February 20th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I laughed until it hurt.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:31 am
That settles it…Swaim>Gladstone in every single way. Hell the man prob. gets more pussy than Gladstone too.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I love you swaim
February 19th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
This was ok.
February 19th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Also, was this in iambic pentameter or something? I know enough to have heard of that sort of thing (I’ve heard of Alexandrine verse too), but not enough to actually be able to spot it.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Very original, very creative, very intelligent, but not all that funny. Stop trying to be David Wong. To quote Phoenix Nights (which I’ll admit you Americans probably haven’t heard of): “Tell us a joke we know!”
February 19th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I realize I’m only adding to the general air of bum-lickery that is going on around here, but…fuck me, Swaim, that truly was the platonic ideal of epic poetry. The bum-licking is deserved.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:15 am
The Ilium comment is totally true, and I feel like a boob for forgetting that. As for the Hodgman thing, I don’t have a TV right now, but I think it’s awesome that I unknowingly ripped him off. He’s great.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Great article as always, Swaim. Except — and I might not be the first to poin this out — the forces of Ilium didn’t sack Troy. The forces of Greece sacked Troy. Ilium and Troy were the same place. And yes, it seems sorta dumb to give two names to a city whose inhabitants were so stupid they could be fooled by a giant horse — you don’t need to confuse people like that any more tyhan necessary. But that’s just how they did things, back there in the olden days.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Awesome!!!
\m/ \m/
February 19th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Swaim, you’re a fucking literary genius. Marvellous. Your pen must be filled with the ink of rainbows and the blood of Shakespeare, carved from the ancient sacred Vlowodhi story telling tree of the Anbaki tribe.
Even if Professor down there is right…
February 19th, 2009 at 7:27 am
FUCK YES! *devil horns* Sell the lyrics to Manowar, Dragonforce, Ronnie James Dio or Kamelot and you’ll be forever cemented in greatness.
February 19th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Biopic
Starring William H. Macy.
It must be done.
Seriously, its like separated at birth twins…
February 19th, 2009 at 4:27 am
“When the forces of Illium (sic.) sacked Troy”…. huh? Why would they sack their own city. Ilium IS Troy. The Greeks sacked Troy.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:09 am
Your design for the Sullybuck, which John Hodgeman happened to show on last Thursday’s Daily Show?
February 19th, 2009 at 1:22 am
for this epic prose is but a spit into the inferno of greatness that is Captain Sully
February 18th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
that deserves SOMETHING besides just being here for us to write about.
maybe you guys over at cracked with all your money and good hairdos could spray paint it on a peice of cardboard and prop it up across the river from where he landed.
and i agree, EPIC is the adjective of choice for all us commenters.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
First off, that was epic. And hilarious.
Second, how would Flight of the Conchords kill your funny ballad gland?
Puh-SHAW.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I’m not reading all that ballad.
I don’t take my humour in ballad form ever since I saw Flight of the Concords and my funny ballad gland just shriveled up and died.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I wish that Tenacious D would set this epic saga to music.
Swaim! Get on that!
We ride and we ride and we’ll never subside
We’ll ride till the planets collide
And if you say that we do not ride,
I’ll tan your fucking hide
RIDE!
February 18th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I have nothing clever to say. This was simply teh epix.
February 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Wow, dude. I thought Brockway’s article was good, and then you go and blow its balls off with this. Forget my hat, my entire skull is off to you Swaim.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I love the invocation of the Muse at the beginning. I believe that makes this some pretty legit epic poetry. OMG EPIC POETRY WIN. it works two ways!
February 18th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Incredible, truly is Sullenberger the Beowulf of our times.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
hey zmollusc, her tits are just that big…
amazing work swaim.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
“Here’s hoping you pilot every plane I ever fly in.”
Indeed.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
To Ice Table:
There are “…” at the end of each number and therefore the true value is not known… I still like the cut of your jib though!
February 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Oh, and I’d take Michael Whelan over Frezzata or Kelly any day.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Epic win.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
That was beautiful man.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
God! I get it! “Sully” is better than the rest of us! He can shoot fire from his asshole while simultaneously fucking every woman on the earth, and beat up chuck norris.
fuck
February 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
The sheer epicness of that made me want to put on a chain bikini and fight dragons.
Unfortunately that would not hold a candle to the awesomeness of Captain Sullenberger, so why even try?
Kids should study that ballad in high school english classes from now on. It’s necessary.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Apparently a zillion is somewhere between a hundred thousand and a hundred million
February 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
And I shall pass this tale to my son, as he will to his. From now until … sometime after Easter.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Ah, Swaim, ye truly are a poet juste,
Yet one doubts whether the bill
Denoting a mere zillion of such dollars
Demonstrates true admiration of his will.
Nay, TEN zillion it must be
For he who fought the devil geese
With nothing but his wit and grit
And an airline shirt of rayon and fleece.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Absolutely amazing. Made me cry put of awe, seriously. By far my favorite website and possible my favorite columnist
February 18th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Homer was a great story teller.
Virgil was a great poet.
Swaim and Milton bring both aspects together. The thing that sets Swaim apart comes with his ability to add a penis joke about a founding father and several beautiful verses about a plane committing coitus with a body of water.
You sir are a master of your craft!
February 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Who the hell is Sully? Dammit, Swaim! I don’t like looking things up!
February 18th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
poetry…
pure poetry
thank you, swaim.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
mhnin aeide thea phlhiadew achilleus
pretty funny to use epic form, and fitting for an encomium.
the only point I’d pick is that encomiums typically break into 5 parts: prologue, upbringing, the major things the person did, a series of ridiculous metaphors and then an epilogue.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Swaim, I’m disappointed. You forgot Sully’s heroic wrestling of Skree’s mother to the bottom of the Hudson while the innocent passengers were evacuated to safety. Best part of the entire epic, in my opinion.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I love cracked’s article making fun of things that deserve to be knocked down a peg or too, and its much much harder to write something funny about someone who is awesome and commendable. Swaim, amazing job, also from the little i remember about the language used in the oddessy from reading it in high school, you did a bang up job capturing the tone. Anytime Mr. Sullenberger does a safety lecture from now on, The person introducing him should read this poem instead of listing his accolades.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
These eyes are crying.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
It all seems totally reasonable apart from that chick holding his leg. I realise my vast experience of looking at pictures of women is tempered by the corresponding degeneration in visual acuity, but how can her right boob be in front of his shin when her right shoulder is behind his calf? Or did he lose his lower leg, Bader-like, in the plane crash?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
*applause*
February 18th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
“How that great steel length swooped low
As if to plow you something proper,
Then glided into your watery cooch”
Classic!
February 18th, 2009 at 11:54 am
That. Was. Freaking.
AWESOME!!!
February 18th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Frank Frazetta and Ken Kelly are both pretty much amazing, I can’t say one trumps the other.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Ilium is the same thing as Troy. It’s just another name for it. Other than that, I am uncomfortably attracted to you, Mr. Swaim. You’re my favorite Cracked writer.
Well, you and Bucholz.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hitler’s beard!
The best exclamation of impending doom, ever!
February 18th, 2009 at 11:45 am
EPIC!
Honest to God. Swaim this just might be my favorite article on Cracked…EVER.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Sign this…
With humble gratitude,
lbh
February 18th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Has a line as great as “with balls the size of giant balls” ever been written?
February 18th, 2009 at 11:11 am
When I first read the title, I thought it referred to that virile specimen of manhood from Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman.
This is better.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:21 am
i am spartacus
February 18th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Fantastic work again, SWAIM.
Always awesome.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:21 am
S.uch W.riting A.lways I.nspires M.e
Awesome stuff Swaim.
@ Christina: Frank Frazetta >>>>>>> Ken Kelly, sorry
February 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
The fact that you used a piece of Ken Kelly art gave me a little nerdgasm. Just a little one.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:45 am
“Aghast at the godlike moxy of this mortal man[.]” I love it. Congrats, Swaim, you just reentered the running as my favorite columnist. Applying Hellenic . . . ish . . . epic poetry to a modern event and mixing it with Cracked humor? Brilliant. You, sir, are the new Homer, the new Milton, the new Swaim of the ages.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:36 am
brilliant work Swaim.