A Blog of My Own

When on Thursday I read in Slate that one of George Carlin’s main idols had been Danny Kaye, I thought, “How odd.” But then I remembered that a few days earlier, the following video had crossed my desk. Even in a week when George Carlin videos have been flying around the globe, this one stood out as awesome. Beautifully written, impeccably delivered, you could put notes and rhythm behind it and it would make a tremendous piece of musical-theater patter:

In fact, if you did set it to music, you might end up with something very much like this—Danny Kaye’s “Tschaikowsky,” the song with which he stole the musical Lady in the Dark out from under star Gertrude Lawrence. Written by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin for Lady in the Dark’s score, the song culminates in Kaye’s singing the names of 54 Russian composers in 38 seconds. You can hear it

by clicking right here.

Incidentally, in the worthwhile Kaye biography Nobody’s Fool, Martin Gottfried writes:

…[Lawrence] had the leading role and the evening focused on her. Young Kaye had only “Tschaikowsky” to make his mark, but for Lawrence it was as if the loss of full audience focus for even a moment would mean the end of her recognition altogether.

It eventually settled into a duel of stage “business”—any kind of moment while the other was singing…Once, while Kaye was performing “Tschaikowsky,” Gertie put a cigarette in a long holder and lit a match, holding it until it nearly burned her fingers. Then, as he continued singing, she lit a second match.

On another occasion, she wore a bracelet that had little bells on it. Not content with the visual distraction of its glitter, she actually shook the bracelet while he was singing.

It didn’t work. Kaye became a star. And George Carlin found his inspiration.

The death of Dody Goodman last week causes me to reminisce about that great 70s soap opera lampoon Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (Dody played Mary’s mother); and that causes me to reminisce about the magnificent main title music for the show, composed by Earle Hagen. (Click here to hear.) Hagen wrote many great TV themes, including those for The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Spy. For Mary Hartman, he created a masterpiece of classic Hollywood tunesmithing and orchestration. Funny as the show was, and funny as his theme music was in context, divorced from that context there is nothing funny about it—it stands up as pure music, and could easily have been the soundtrack for a Douglas Sirk movie of the fifties.

Hagen died only last month. RIP, RIP.

The above is but one of eleven choice pix that the New York Times has assembled into a Cyd Charisse memorial slideshow.

This one takes the wrong tone. Ominous. Dark. Bitter. It has a point to make (though weakened by Franken’s own support for the war for at least two years—I well remember this from his AirAmerica radio show) but makes it in a way that is inconsistent with the witty Franken brand. He ought to be mocking his opponent Norm Coleman over this (mockery is something Franken does devastatingly well), not casting him with sincere conviction as Evil Incarnate, which only makes Coleman seem formidable. Mockery belittles; fear grants power to the object feared.

Now that I gave money to Al Franken for U.S. Senate, I’m (naturally) receiving emails from the campaign, and some of these lead to the campaign’s commercials. This one I found encouraging, because it shows that Franken isn’t hiding his wit under a bushel, even when he’s not being funny:

Here are The Beatles running away from their fans in the very first shot of A Hard Day’s Night:

And here I am, running the very same stretch of sidewalk (alongside Marylebone Station in London) in an uncanny recreation:

Now relive the magic:

Al Franken received the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party last weekend, which means he will be the Democratic candidate this fall for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Norm Coleman (whom Franken will be opposing).

There are disturbing signs already that Franken is backpedaling from specific pieces of his satirical writing of the last 30 years. He must feel he has to if he is to win, but as one who has regarded Franken as a great American political and social humorist, I wish he wouldn’t throw his wit under the bus. His humor is why he should be elected.

The superficial reason he should stay funny is that it would be cool to have someone funny in the Senate for the next six years. But there’s a serious reason, too. Humor is a potent instrument. One politician can blather platitudes for hours and not move the needle of public opinion an inch. Another can distill the same argument into one funny sentence, and change the world. Franklin Roosevelt knew that. Barack Obama shows signs of knowing it. Al Franken has always known it—but is in danger of forgetting it.

It may be that Franken believes his uniquely subversive, sly-fool humor is the enemy of the orthodoxy he must espouse to win—and he may even be right about that—but the conundrum he faces is that without the freedom to be funny, he will be like Samson without his hair. Assuming he can even win in this self-neutered condition, there probably isn’t much point in electing him if he’s going to be just another ineffectual doctrinaire liberal, other than to keep Norm Coleman from re-election.

Anyway, ever the optimist, I made a contribution to Franken’s campaign, and you can, too. When you do so, you get a special YouTube video of Al giving you his thanks.

It’s a toss-up which is more of an institution in Chicago: The Jazz Showcase, or the man who owns it, Joe Segal. The club has kept name-brand jazz alive in Chicago for six decades now, but it has been chased by rising rents from one location to another during that time. Until this week, it had been MIA for over a year, after losing its lease on its previous location. But it’s back, on S. Dearborn, and in some ways better than ever, according to this Chicago Tribune review by critic Howard Reich.

Joe Segal is now 82, and while he has brought his son Wayne into the business, essential to the Jazz Showcase experience have always been Joe’s wonderfully sardonic introductions. The last time I saw him, a little more than a year ago when singer Ernestine Anderson performed at his club, he was still in top form. I hope whatever vitamins and/or fish oil he’s taking, he keeps taking them.

My first Jazz Showcase evening was shortly after I settled in Chicago. I heard the Woody Herman Big Band at the club’s Rush Street location, and the power of that band’s sound in that small space is still ringing in my ears. (In the best way possible.) I’ve followed Joe and his club from one location to another through the years, and look forward to visiting the latest incarnation. For Joe, the club has always been about the music—barmaids are there when needed but unobtrusive, bartenders keep the blenders and shakers pretty quiet during sets, acoustics and sightlines have always been good, smoking was banned a good decade and a half before the law made it necessary, etc. Long may it groove. If you are visiting Chicago, a visit to The Jazz Showcase should be on the top of your list of things to do.

It is impossible to be in London, looking at Westminster Abbey and the tower Big Ben,

and not have Roger Miller’s catchy ditty wrap itself around your brain with the tenacity of a boa constrictor crossed with Hillary Clinton.

And the little children really do have rosey-red cheeks! As incontrovertibly proved by this artist’s rendering.

Remember Jane Asher? Paul McCartney’s bird in the sixties? Well, besides continuing a career as an actress, Jane is in the cake business. In a cute little enclave of small shops on Cale Street, a couple of blocks from Kings Road in Chelsea, you’ll find Jane Asher’s cake shop. As we did.

She even has a packaged cake mix.

The Beatles “In My Life” walking tour offered by London Walks (highly recommended) takes you by the house on Wimpole Street that Jane lived in with her family in the sixties. (It’s on the very same block as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s house.) Paul lived there with Jane and the Ashers, and had the dream one night that resulted in “Yesterday.” (When he woke up, he drove everyone in the household crazy for days, asking them if the tune he was humming was already familiar to them from somewhere else. He couldn’t quite believe that this tune that came to him in a dream was not one that already existed. When everyone confirmed for him that it was, in fact, original, he set lyrics to it, and it became (it’s been speculated) the most covered song of all time.

Here’s a video which shows Jane is still a bit of all right. (At the end, she talks about her cakes.)