Dja Ever Have...

a song stuck in your head that won't go away? This morning it was Trouble from The Music Man. That starts with T, which rhymes with P, which stands for pestering the crap out of me!

Tis one of my favorites though. I remember seeing it at the old Camden County Theater in the Round with Gig Young as Harold Hill. My mother loved musicals; my father - not so much. So whenever a road show would come around, he'd stay home and Mom would drag young Billy along with her. That could explain my love of musicals. But not my enjoyment of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Like many, she didn't like those either.

During my first attempt at college, I fed my thespian appetite acting in Siena's "Little Theater." The director loved operetta. After performing in several, I fell under its Victorian spell. Some say I'm a contrarian and like it because no one else does. My appreciation of jazz paragon, Sun Ra, gets the same explanation. Pshaw say I, but enough digression, back to the subject at hand. Or back to the heavy-handed treatment of the subject.

Meredith Wilson wrote The Music Man basing many of the characters from people in his home town of Mason City, Iowa. However, that is a landlocked city in the north central part of the state. In the play, the opening scene occurs on a train going from Rock Island, Illinois into Iowa. That makes the most obvious River City, Davenport, Iowa located on the Mississippi directly across from Rock Island. Living in Davenport for four years, I attest to the natives' belief that they are the town in the play.

Aside from a story about a con man and catchy songs, including several in barbershop quartet style*, this musical attracts me because it's neato trivia:  

• Music Man won the Tony for Best Musical beating out West Side Story.  
• In the 1980 revival starring Dick Van Dyke, the lisping boy, Winthrope, was played by a young Christian Slater. 
• Many false trivia facts concern Ron Howard in that part. I have heard that he played Winthrope on Broadway (false) and that the movie was his first acting job (false). By the time the movie was made, 1962, he was a two-year veteran of The Andy Griffith Show. It was his first film role.
• The song, Till There Was You, from the play was recorded in 1963 on Meet the Beatles (With the Beatles in the UK). Wilson's widow later stated that the estate made more money from the royalty rights of the Beatles' recording than it did from the play itself. 

*Another guilty pleasure of mine. I still deny being a contrarian, but..."I enjoy being a girl. I flip when a fellow sends me flowers.."  Sorry, I also suffer from Flower Drum Song tourettes.

I've been asked where I get ideas for these musings. They come from many sources. Today, a song stuck in my head led my love of musicals, operetta, spurious claims of contrarianism,  reminisces of Iowa,  and Music Man trivia.

A mind is a terrible thing when wasted. - as ever BB

"You really ought to give Iowa a try.
Provided you are contrary..." - Iowa Stubborn  from The Music Man.

NJ Turnpike

A favorite pastime of mine is eavesdropping. Sometimes my busy-body bent has provided fodder for this blog.

Last weekend I overheard two parents discussing the challenging task of talking to their bairns about sex. Little did they know that the gentleman behind them at the deli counter was once a certified sex education instructor. Or, as my employer at the time, the diocese of Camden, called it "Becoming a Person Program."

During the 1976/77 & 77/78 school years, I taught elementary school at St. Rose of Lima in Newfield, NJ.  During my second year, New Jersey provided funding and books so Catholic schools could participate in the state's sex-ed program. Either I, or one of the nuns had to tackle this subject. The instruction fell on my shoulders.

I went to Trenton to receive my training and text books. I was told the books were appropriately edited. When I unloaded the books, I found out how. Those intended for the 7th and 8th graders contained a large gap. Some state minion had used a razor blade to excise the chapters on contraception and birth control. We must keep propagating and filling the Catholic coffers, so none of that now!

My "Becoming a Person" classes for the 5th grade focused on the male and female anatomy and the reproductive systems. 6th was conception and child birth. 7th and 8th were hygiene, responsibility and respect. Also for those not constrained by Catholic canons contraception.

I prepared my homeroom, 5th grade, for the first lesson. Having no graphic arts skill, I asked the only other lay teacher, who taught kindergarten, to draw a diagram of the uterus, fallopian tubes, etc. onto my blackboard. My classroom had the blackboard and my desk on the back wall. The desks faced me and behind them was the door to the hall. You will soon see the significance of this.

The aforementioned diagram has always reminded me of an interchange on the NJ Turnpike. I was only 22 at the time and my feet had not yet "taken root in the earth" to quote Bruce Springsteen. So before the young minds came into class, I started adding signs. "Lincoln Tunnel 2 miles", "Hazmat Depot Next Exit", "Slow Traffic Stay Right", etc.

As a typical teacher, I had a drawer full of confiscated toys. So I took a couple of matchbox cars to use as sperm representations. Using the appropriate car/traffic sounds, I described the spermatozoon's commute. I don't know if the class was instructive. Judging by the laughter, my truck driver impersonations, and sundry noises entertained those eager, young minds.

As one sperm was cutting of the other after passing on the right to enter the cervical canal, the class got very quiet. I knew what that meant. I turned from the blackboard to see the principal, Sister Augustine sternly standing mid-aisle. Entering the class to see what was causing the hilarity, she did not look kindly on my methodology.

As the year progressed, I had little difficulty with the lower two grades. The 7th and 8th graders were another story.  The onus with that group was containing their lewd wise-cracks. Refraining from laughing and exclaiming "Good One!" was my personal cross to bear.

That was my last year of teaching. I moved on by my own volition. Despite my off-beat style, I was well liked by the administration and the parents. My last "Becoming a Person" class  was with the 8th grade. I asked for questions. The one hand raised came from the chief class clown. I girded my loins as he stood up and asked, "So, Mr. Billings, what would be your advice concerning our future situations involving the opposite sex."

I looked at him, glanced around the room at those anxious, inquisitive faces and said, "Remember, it's all about chromosomes and genes. Keep your chromosomes in your jeans and you'll have nothing to worry about." As ever - BB

"...I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress. Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars..." - Growing Up, Bruce Springsteen

Skid Row

My first experience unchecked by the ties of home and family came in 1972 when I matriculated at Siena College. There I found kindred spirits affected by writings of the Kerouac, Rimbaud, Verlaine, etc. We desired to experience life outside of our shared, conventional, prep-school blazer background.

Leaving the collegiate cocoon, we plunged into the skid row experience. The run down sections of Albany, Schenectady and Cohos, NY became our hang outs. Along with a lot of cheap beer, wine and whiskey, I drank in the ambiance of the derelict. Sometimes I'd talk to these old-timers, but mostly I'd just look at their faces. In them, I understood Kerouac's desolation angels, "beat and down in the world," yet beatific also.

Last night I stumbled on a 1956 movie, On the Bowery. This moving piece of "docufiction" portrayed three days in the lives of New York's skid row denizens. The film had no actors, but actual Bowery residents trying to eke out an existence in gin mills, flop houses and in the streets.

The two main characters where the old man, Gorman Hendricks and the younger, Ray Salyer. During the filming, Gorman was ordered to stop drinking for health reasons. He did for the remainder of the shoot, but when filming ended started up again. He died before the film was edited. Ray became a minor celebrity. Life Magazine interviewed him, and Hollywood offered him a contract. He turned it down claiming all he wanted to do was drink. He slipped into the obscurity of the Bowery.

What struck me most were the faces. Full frames of careworn, grizzled faces filled the screen. Watching transported me four decades. Again I looked into the rheumy eyes of men; the windows to their souls. For whatever reason, life and alcohol had trampled them; however, an unfailing kernel of humanity remained. As ever - BB

     “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved..." - Jack Kerouac

Sleepless in Nostalgia

I consider myself lucky in that I usually have no problem sleeping. Last night was an exception. I've been up since 3am. With less than 4 hours in the arms of Morpheus, I do feel a little punch-drunk. Thanks to caffeine, and up-coming weekend adrenaline, I endeavor to persevere.  

 Not wanting to wake my partner, I went downstairs to ruminate and contemplate. Sitting in the predawn darkness, my thoughts went not to the metaphysical nor the aesthetic, but to the inane. I reminisced about an obscure puppet show of my youth, Bertie the Bunyip. 

A bunyip is an Australian aboriginal mythological creature. This children's show puppet was created by Lee Dexter. He described the bunyip as a creature made with God's leftovers - the bill of a platypus, the ears of a kangaroo, the nose and fur of a dingo. My favorite character of course was the sly villain, Sir Guy de Guy. Even at an early age my sartorial sense showed. I just loved the fox's grey top hat, cape and Western bow tie.

Bertie first appeared on the Lunch with Uncle Pete kids' show on Channel 3 in Philadelphia. Uncle Pete was Francis Xavier Boyle, a cartoonist/artist and early TV personality. His son is actor, Peter Boyle. As Chuck Wagon Pete, he hosted a Western show, Six Gun Cinema.

Twas on this show I first experienced the old Gene Autry movie serial, The Phantom Empire. Thus began my proclivity for Scully shirts and singing cowboys.

By the early 60s, cartoons like Popeye and Tom Terrific paired with Three Stooges reruns replaced home-grown offerings like Bertie. These needed no production; ergo, they were cheaper for the stations. But on my rare sleepless nights, memories of Bertie, Fussy and Gussy and Sir Guy de Guy maintain my mental meditations. Plus, they provide fodder for my blog. As ever - BB

"But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow." - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes