The Trainer

With apologies to Messrs. Simon and Garfunkel

John Hoppner Richard Humphreys, the Boxer

This wee homage to a pivotal piece of the soundtrack of my youth began as a single-stanza send up of the last verse of The Boxer. In the month that followed, the endless editability of Substack permitted me to subject the other parts of the song to similar treatment, thereby replacing the solipsistic saga of self-absorbed Bohemians with the tale of a recently retired “PowerPoint ranger” and the indispensable tools of his trade. I also changed the title, lest readers presume that I had doubled my entendre.

The Trainer

I was once a briefer, one who wrangled PowerPoint

And I squandered my existence, putting text into the fonts loved by

The generals.

Times was best.  Still a man makes use of Ariel

When typing out the rest.

---

When I left the puzzling Pentagon, I was only forty-two.

So I joined a beltway bandit, near the entrance to a Metro station. 

Contracting. 

Bidding low, seeking out the poorer projects where no Raytheon would go,

Looking for the tenders only majors know.

DVI, lie la lie la lie la lie

HDMI la lie la lie la lie, la la lie la lie

---

Asking only pins that line up

I go looking for a fit.  But I find no matches,

Just a sales pitch from a genius at the Apple Store.

I do declare.  There were times when I was so desperate

I bought a Belkin there.  La la la la la la la.

DVI, la la la lie la lie, lie la lie

HDMI, la lie la lie la lie, la la lie la lie

---

And I'm laying out my coupling kit, and wishing I had more.

Just in case 

There’s a one-off big screen TV

In the conf'rence room

That can't fit

My old MacBook

---

In a classroom stands a trainer,

A presenter by his trade.

And he carries the reminders

Of every screen projector 

That he plugged into his laptop

In the hope of interface.

“It’s not working!  It’s not working!”

But the dongles still remain.

DVI, la la la lie la lie, lie la lie

HDMI, la lie la lie la lie, la la lie la lie