A Totally Fabricated Bio in the style of Dr. Seuss

There's this thing I do sometimes called a Totally Fabricated Bio. It's where I write a short bio for a person that contains very little in the way of actual biographical information, but is fun and usually funny and often written in the style of the subject's favorite author.

I recently wrote a set of Totally Fabricated Bios for the management team at Red Pill Now, a tech solutions firm that is probably the coolest company ever because they are using my wacky bios on their website.

I thought I'd share the bios with my Steemit friends, too. Here's one about an interesting chap named Peter Presnell who spent a part of his childhood living on the side of a volcano in Tasmania, and who challenged me to write his bio in the style of the great Dr. Seuss. As always, my efforts are not guaranteed to perfectly match the style of the requested author, but I sure do try my best! And hopefully, the result is entertaining, regardless.

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Peter of the Island Tasmano

A Totally Fabricated Bio written for Peter Presnell, in the style of Dr. Seuss

In the uppermost up
Of the Island Tasmano
At the toppermost top
Of a fiery volcano
Where the luffernip luffs
And the whizzleby whizzes
And the hot spring of Zippula
Bubbles and fizzes
There, at the crest
Of the peakiest peaking
A boy-child was born
(In a manner of speaking.)
Not so much born,
The volcano folk say,
But more like assembled
From fire and clay
And the gribbly-soft down
Of a just-hatched farloon
And the wumpulous warbles
Of the bardabassoon.
Mixed well and salted
And brewed for a week
In the cavernous depths
Of a glozadil’s beak.

Presnell was his surname;
His first name was Peter,
And no volcano-born person
Ever was neater.
In the shade of the zoofletree
He grew strong as a melfoose
Snacking on zooflenuts
And drinking their juice.
His head filled with brains,
And his shoes filled with feet,
He explored and inquired
And became a smart Pete.

Tasmano was home,
And I’m sure you’ll believe it
When I tell you that Peter
Had no wish to leave it.
But a certain day came
With a certain feel to it
When a certain young Peter
Must certainly do it.
He’d explored to the limits,
He’d grown all he could grow
And without leaving the island,
He’d learned all he could know.

So around the caldera
The volcano folk gathered
(The aforementioned creatures,
And also the Zather,
The Mellifluous Melfoose,
The Venomous Vlex,
And of course both the Conformist
And the Contrary Crecks.)
They gathered in wonder,
They gathered with pride,
To see Peter off
And bid him goodbye.
The glozadil, in whose beak
Pete had gestated,
Was understandably fearful
That his boat might be raided,
Or tossed by a sea storm,
Or his feathered cape lost,
Or he might be captured by pirates
And served warm with a sauce.
But the other volcano folk
Soothed her with songs
That had been sung in those parts
All eternity-long.

Peter spoke a few words
And cried a few tears
And promised he’d come back
In a number of years
To tell the volcano folk
All the things he had seen,
Heard, smelled, and discovered
In the places he’d been.
So with his head filled with brains,
And his shoes filled with feet,
He waved fare-thee-well
And climbed into the seat
Of his seafaring vessel
Made of bamboo and hide
With a belching volcano
Tattooed on its side.
He unmoored his boat
And it drifted to sea
And Pete watched as the island
Shrank, small as a pea.

Peter’s seafaring vessel
Sailed far and wide
To unlikely countries
With Peter inside.
Each land where he landed
He encountered new wonders
Like the Bog of Burnandit
And the Spiralous Splunderz.
He traveled the globe
And made his own way
Keeping adrift till he came
To the land of El-Lay.
There was something about it
That Pete found intriguing
So he decided to stay
Until he found it fatiguing.
A strange place it was,
With odd-speaking folks
Who wore shoes called “sneakers”
And featherless cloaks.
Many El-Layans
Were fond of commuting
Back and forth to the hallowed
Halls of Computing.
It was in these great halls
That the El-Layans made codes
That made paper that paid
For their luxury abodes
And their featherless cloaks
And their shiny white shoes
And their meals that did not
Include zooflenut juice.

At first Peter thought it
An odd sort of system—
With so many protocols
No lister could list ‘em.
But when invited to try
His own hand at the coding
He took to it like
A vlex to its vloting.
He was fast as a flare,
And could type like the wind,
And when he’d finished
He wanted to do it again.
Pete pounded the keys
Til his fingers were sore,
Then he bandaged them gently
And pounded some more.
In no more than one year,
Six months and a day,
He became the best coder
That ever could say
He was made of farloon-down
And volcano fire
With a completely straight face
And not be a liar.

Many years passed
And Peter grew older
With the bright El-Lay sun
Shining down on his shoulders.
And one day it struck him
Amid strings of code
That he missed dear Tasman-o
And he really must go
Back to the island--
For a promise he owed,
and there’s no telling when
Volcanos might explode.

He stood up from the keyboard
And stretched all his limbs
And dusted the dust
Off his boat made of skins.
And wishing his friends
A fantastulous day,
He departed the sunny, strange
Land of El-Lay.
He sailed round the globe
Towards the home he was seeking—
He didn’t stop ’til he spied
The peakiest peaking
Of the toppermost top
Of the Island Tasman-o
And the uppermost up
Of its fiery volcano.

An ecstatic reunion
Took place at the shore
With the Zather, the Melfoose,
The Farloon, and more.
The glozadil wept tears of delight
And even the Vlexes were glad
To see Peter alight.
To this very day,
Peter Presnell remains
At the toppermost top
Of the Island Tasmane.
But though you look far,
And though you peer wide,
You won’t find the volcano
Where Peter resides.

All images in this post were snagged from Pixabay.com and used under a creative commons license.

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Check out my other Totally Fabricated Bios!

Seaweed Margarita, written in the style of Tom Robbins

The Life and Times of Nathan T. Freeman, Master Defiantist, written in the style of Terry Pratchett

A Time Travel Tale in which I Attempt a Poem in the Style of Robert Burns

Vagabond Roller Queen, in the style of the great American Tall Tale

...and check back for more Totally Fabricated Bios coming later this week!

If you're interested in commissioning a Totally Fabricated Bio for yourself, hit me up!

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I love you, Steemit!

@lesliestarrohara