I suspect that this is a perverson of a song found in one of John Steinbecks stories, maybe Tortilla Flat. I remember it as something like this: No hay la pluma, no hay papel, no hay escribo, Godamnit to Hell. (I have no pen, I have paper, I cannot write, Goddamn it to Hell.) This is something of a sterotype and subsequencially a racial insult. This might account for your friends reluctance to teach it. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson