Well, dear readers, it is Sunday. Isn’t that a fine first sentence? So brisk, so to the point, so right on the money. I could stop right there and all would be well. I would like all to be well because frankly all was feeling a little under the weather last night. All was just looking a little green last night. However, that is appropriate and do you know why? Well, I’ll tell you why, dear readers, because who am I to keep such information from you. It is appropriate to look green because today, Sunday, is St. Patrick’s Day. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it is St. Patrick’s Day and we must celebrate. We must party until we drop. We must eat green ham chunks and cheese slices, we must drink green Diet Coke and green apple martinis, we must dance both an Irish Jig and an Irish Reel. We must all speak in quaint Irish accents and say pithy and piquant things like “shore and begorrah” and “have you seen the little people”. We must have the wearin’ of the green otherwise people will pinch us. We must all be named Paddy and Colleen. We must all watch Mr. John Ford’s The Quiet Man with Mr. John Wayne and Miss Maureen O’Hara. For breakfast we must eat O’atmeal. In short, we must do only Irish things that St. Patrick himself would be proud of. We must believe in leprechauns and fairies and pots o’ gold. Why even the bird is outside celebrating by singing How Are Things in Glocca Morra and singing it quite handily with a lilting Irish lilt. I love a lovely lilting lilt, don’t you?
Yesterday, I went to a lovely antique show in Glendale. It’s really not an anitque show per se, it’s a moderne show. Only things moderne and outre, although one dealer had only things that were outre and moderne, damn his eyes. My friend Leo was there, and as usual he had a beautiful assortment of illustration art – mostly paintings used for paperback covers and pulps, but a few other cherce items as well. I’ve bought many paintings from him over the last few years, and sometimes, when I tire of them, we do a little trading and I get brand spanking new paintings. That is what we did yesterday and I got some lulus. I wonder if dear reader Lulu has ever gotten some lulus? It is a good deal of fun to get lulus. In any case, I got the original watercolor for a very late Saturday Evening Post cover from December of 1968. In fact, there would only be three more issues of the Post after that, before the magazine finally went out of business after more than sixty years. Interestingly, most of the Post covers by that late date were photographs – this is one of the few art covers that were done in the late sixties. And it’s a lulu. It depicts a couple of major cities in the future and asks the question, “Are we heading toward the day everything stops?” It’s got great detail and is pretty cooliscious if you ask me. Then I traded for the original painting from a Michael Shayne Detective Magazine from the mid-sixties, which shows Mr. Shayne and a beautiful dame. Love that. But the key trade (I had to trade three count them three pieces to get it) is a Dean Cornwell painting which is really wonderful. Mr. Dean Cornwell was one of the deans of illustration art, and I have always wanted something by him and now I have it. It depicts an artist painting a beautiful redhead and was used in American Magazine in the late forties. Maybe someday, Mr. Mark Bakalor will teach me how to upload images to this here site and I can share some of my wonderful art with you.
Uh oh, it’s that time again. It’s the time to push that green Unseemly O’Button below.
Excuse me for a minute.
I thought so. I knew Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest had written an Irish song and now I’ve found it and can share it with you. It’s called The Irishman and the Jew.
THE IRISHMAN AND THE JEW Music by Hinky Meltz Lyrics by Ernest Ernest
The Irishman and the Jew were out walking one fine day
The Irishman said “How’s by you?”
And the Jew said,
“That’s such a Jewish thing to say”.
“Shouldn’t you say top o’ the morning or something like that?”
And the Irishman said
“Oh, I could, but don’t you think that that’s old hat?”
And then the Irishman sang
Oh, I want to be a Jew
How I long to be a Jew
I’m so tired of being Irish
And I want to be a Jew.
Nu?
The Jew looked at the Irishman as they walked along their way
The Jew said, “That’s a little sick
Did you ever hear me saying
That I want to be a Mick?”
The Irishman said, “Oy, you could never be like me”
And the Jew said,
“If you can be a Jew, then an Irishman I will be”
And the Jew sang
How I want to wear the green
How I long to wear the green
If you’re Jewish then I’m Irish
So just call me fair Colleen.
So, the Irishman and the Jew walked along all through the day,
The Irishman said, “Let’s go to shul”
And the Jew said
“No, let’s go to Galway Bay”
And the Irishman said, “You shvantz, I can’t call you fair Colleen
Unless you call me Moishe”
And the two of them could be seen
Singing
Oh, I want wear the green
Oh, I want to be a Jew
I’ll eat boiled beef, I’ll eat brisket
And I’ll be the same as you
Well, now, if you wear the green
And if I can learn to shvitz
Well, I’ll call you Sean O’Grady
And you call me Sam Lipschitz
Oh, I want to wear the green,
Oh, I want to be a Jew
And the Jew became the Irish
And they both ate Irish Stew
With borscht and latkes
And the Jew became the Irish
And the Irish is a Jew!
Isn’t that a wonderful song? It has both a Irish Reel and Klezmer feel to it.
Keep your guesses coming in the trivia contest. If you missed the question, just use the handy-dandy Unseemly Archive O’Button and see yesterday’s notes. Don’t forget, there’s a brand spanking new The Broadway Radio Show going up today, and it’s a lulu, with special guest Lisa Richard, playing lots of songs from her new CD, including mine own song.
Well, I hope we’re all having a fine St. Patrick’s Day thus far. Given our St. Patrick’s Day celebration, let’s make today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Betty Comden and Adolph GREEN songs? With any of their collaborators. So many to choose from. I’ll start: Never Never Land, The Party’s Over, It’s A Perfect Relationship, How Can You Describe A Face?, Comes Once In A Lifetime, Some Other Time, Wrong Note Rag, Long Before I Knew You and Lucky To Be Me. Your turn.