49 Out of cannons and canons,
50 And freedom and grit.
CHAPTER 301 The Way of the Yanks was union,
2 Before union meant a faction,
3 And they kept on making movies,
4 And trying hard to do it right.
5 They fought a lot,
6 And did things wrong,
7 And left a million miles of footage on the floor.
8 But they built on their genius for compromise,
9 And settled their differences time after time,
10 So that dreams could keep moving on out the door.
11 Their pictures made money,
12 And fattened their wallets,
13 Till their rivals felt envy,
14 And laughed at their zest.
15 But the Yanks loved success,
16 And gloried in winning,
17 Sure of their talent,
18 For fairy tale endings.
19 They knew the hero gets the girl,
20 And the bad guy always gets shot,
21 And no sin is ever left unavenged,
22 If the writer's on top of the plot.
23 That's why they finally took on the challenge,
24 Of showing the world the American Way,
25 In a foreign film,
26 Called world war one,
27 And a sequel called world war too.
28 But this time they ended with special effects,
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29 That almost devoured the screen,
30 And frightened the audience half to death,
31 Not to mention the studio team.
32 For they started to wonder,
33 And doubt, and fear,
34 The rule they had taken for granted:
35 That happy endings would always be there,
36 If you did the work for what you wanted.
CHAPTER 311 And now the studio is torn by strife,
2 And the dreams aren't coming so fast anymore,
3 Because of a snafu called real life,
4 And a runaway passion for evening the score:
5 The stars are locked in their dressing rooms,
6 And haven't been rehearsing;
7 The director's refusing to talk to the cast,
8 For fear they might ask for his vision;
9 And lighting's threatening to go out on strike,
10 Unless someone replaces the camera crew;
11 The propman is drunk and out of nails,
12 So the sets are fastened with glue;
13 A cast of thousands is counting its lines,
14 And demanding more scenery to chew;
15 The writer's obsessed with reworking key scenes,
16 Including tomorrow's, and finished ones too;
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