Andy and Gary inquired if anybody wanted to listen to some music. It is said, so they claimed, that the song of the sirens was so alluring, all who heard it would be seduced to leave from their ships and drown. Homer said, Why not; the grouch did not care for music, nevertheless he had no choice.
Homer and the grouch were tied to the mast of the ship; the rest of the crew plugged wax into their ears to prevent their hearing the music and therefore being seduced.
They approached the siren on her rock; but it was no siren, but a boombox with pretty hair.
Andy and Gary played what were objectively the greatest works of music of all mankind, calculated to have the most beauty perceivable in the human mind: the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert, and, of course, the greatest rock band of the twentieth century, the Shaggs.
The greatest music ever composed by man passed into Homer and the grouch’s ears and ... they said nothing, they felt nothing. They wondered when the song of the sirens would begin and the sound of waves crashing would end.
Confused, Andy and Gary raised the volume of the music. They played other songs: Marvin Gaye crooned what was going on, Donna Summers cooed she felt love, Joni Mitchell could drink a case of you, Elvis Presley admonished you for being a hound dog, Muddy Waters explained he was a mannish boy, and Brian Wilson described how much he loved vegetables.
They then realized the difficulty: the songs were recorded in English. They consulted their Greek translator, who translated the songs accordingly, and was baffled as to who wanted modern pop music to be translated into the language of the Argives.
The machines were dumbfounded. They waved their hands at the crew to circle around the siren’s rock; they were going to solve this problem. They played baroque music; it was too heady for them. They played the blues; it was too sad, and short. They played punk music; they wondered only degenerates liked this. They played industrial; they thought they were going to be sick. They played dubstep; they thought some brain cells were shaved off.
Andy and Gary played every recording they had at hand: Gil Scott-Heron's spoken word, Feynman’s lectures on physics, Marcellus’s Mass, the sounds of the rainforests, women moaning, the Windows 95 startup jingle, “Happy Birthday”, and a particular song of Journey’s I will not name, lest you, the reader, begin singing it aloud.
Finally, Andy and Gary found cause to tighten the ropes; they had to push Homer and the grouch’s heads back, they were crying so much in agony; they longed to leap into the sea and swim to the siren. They found the one most seductive song in existence: the Mr. Softee jingle. Andy and Gary ordered the crew, Quickly, get us some milk from Thrinacia and sugar from the Amazon; they quickly stirred these together, and made ice cream; they then administered palliative licks to Homer and the grouch. So ended the story of the sirens.
The crew set anchor at Phaeacia. Because the crew had ice cream stains over their clothing, they stripped themselves naked. In this state they met a young woman, who never before beheld Greek, Indian, Chinese privates.
She introduced herself as Nausicaa. Don’t you mean Nausicaä? Andy and Gary asked. Oh, umlauts are too rich for my blood, she laughed.
The crew were introduced to King Alcinous and Queen Arete. They were seated for dinner.
Confucius and Laozi asked, Do you have any chopsticks?
The Phaeacians did not know what chopsticks were. They described them as two wooden sticks, for clutching food. They brought out toothpicks; those were too small. They brought out two spears; those were too big. They were satisfied with the women’s hair sticks.
Meanwhile, Socrates was eating with his hands. When pressed on this, he answered, I’m Greek, I eat with my hands.
Aren’t Greeks white people?
I live on the Mediterranean, Turkey is in the east. Hello? Socrates asked, incredulous.
Socrates, however, was openminded enough to learn other people’s customs. They were eating pasta that, as he discerned, required two forks. He stole his neighbors’ forks, that of Siddhartha and Zoroaster’s, both too polite to say anything. In this way, because Socrates hoarded the forks to himself, no one else could eat. Everyone understood this dining philosopher was a problem.
Siddhartha and Moses, too, kept handing plates back to their waiters, for the former was vegan, and the latter could only eat kosher food, on permission of God. Worse, everyone demanded ice cream.
The grouch bored his hosts by telling stories of his various murders; he also offended them by removing himself incessantly to the bathroom to eat more hallucinogenics. Seeing their hosts’ irritation, Homer offered to sing a song. His hosts agreed.
Homer sang songs of Troy and their adventures across the seas. The Phaeacians thought these songs were not worth singing and were poorly sung. They didn’t even rhyme.
Fed up with their guests, King Alcinous coughed very loudly and said it was time for them to go. Because his guests protested, as they were getting comfortable on the couch watching TV, he appeased them through various presents from his treasury. He then kicked them out, and promised his wife to never admit guests again.
© 2025 Jay Lee