Ahoy from Uncle Drunkie!
August 15th, 2005
I will soon take a metal shish kebab skewer to all of our heads. But I will only aim for the ears.
We are now scraping the revolting, maggoty bottom of the children’s music barrel.
Because it’s not bad enough that our children are forced to live in impoverished squalor-for-the-sake-of-art-and-soulful-happiness. Because it’s not bad enough that their tender toes must navigate splintering floors, and their sweet watercolor eyes must absorb peeling wallpaper and mildewed shower curtains. Because it’s not bad enough that their outdoor solace must be found in a poo-mined backyard and on an unsightly front porch and an embarrassingly overgrown front lawn.
Now our children must subsist on vile musical dregs in the car—thanks to the Machiavellian marketing-and-technology villains who have decided that nuclear foursome-ish families like ours should be able to afford CD players for our matching Volvos or Saabs.
Would someone please tell the dirty beasts (most likely the same beasts who came up with the seriously heinous concept of disposable income) that we have:
No Volvos!
No Saabs!
NO CD PLAYERS IN OUR CARS!
No one makes cassettes anymore. Archaic! Extinct! Obsolete! They live on only in my mind and in our car, where we are stuck with the last remaining children’s tapes on earth, White Boys Singin’ Crack-a-lackin’ Songs o’ Slavery and Ahoy from Uncle Drunkie!
I don’t know where the tapes came from. I don’t know who bought them. But we were desperate enough to jam them into the cassette player at one point. Tragic, tragic error. Now the girls can’t get enough of Mammy and the Land of Cotton. I can’t tell you how unclean I feel, hearing some nerdy white dude (oh, come on! you know he is! no black man in his right mind would take the Mammy gig!) warbling about poor kerchiefed, ankle-cuffed Mammy and her lard biscuits as the kids rock out in the backseat:
Mammy’s little baby loves
short’nin’, short’nin’!
Mammy’s little baby loves
short’nin’ bread!
Dat ain’t all
Mammy’s gonna do
Mammy’s gonna make
a little coffee too!
I’m not saying Mammy’s little baby didn’t love short’nin’ bread. I’m not saying Mammy didn’t make a mean cuppa joe. I’m not even going to argue that Mammy didn’t say dat. I just want to know what the hell Mammy would think to see a Nissan full of white babies kicking their chubby legs, singing Mammy’s special coping song at the top of their lungs. And when it gets to the point when I start feeling Mammy’s ghost in the passenger seat, giving me the evil eye because she knows—Mammy knows!—that I’m fighting to get Aunt Jemima out of my poisoned, so-politically-correct-it’s-incorrect mind, I smack the eject button before the next Dixie-lovin’ song can hoe-down its way into the wee ones’ heads.
That’s when the children start screaming and begging for drunken sailors. And to purge baleful Mammy from my guilt-plagued car, I give in. I give in.
What can you do
with a drunken sailor
What can you do
with a drunken sailor
What can you do
with a drunken sailor
ear-lye in the mornin’?
I’ve got it! Conjure up the syphilitic boozehound in a car full of impressionable young minds en route to a playdate? What? No?
Put ‘im in a longboat ’til he’s sober
Put ‘im in a longboat ’til he’s sober
Put ‘im in a longboat ’til he’s sober
EAR-LYE IN THE MORNIN’!
Sure. That was my second choice and—oh? Really? More can be done with a drunken sailor? Listen up, girls!
Soak him in oil ’til he sprouts a flipper!
Scrape the hair off his chest with a hoop-iron razor!
Give ‘im a taste of the captain’s daughter!
Strong work, honey! Hoop-iron razor, and not even in kindergarten! You little rascal, don’t the airport security guys hear you say that on the way to Grandma and Grandpa’s for Christmas! Sorry, what’s that, sugar? Why would the drunk sailor want to taste the captain’s daughter? Goodness gracious! Where’d Mammy go?
Good, clean, aural family fun.
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized, Play nice! (Politics & Religion), Time-out. (General insanity)
24 Comments
1. Katie | August 16th, 2005 at 1:25 am
We’ll bring out a bootlegged iTunes tape of the kiddos current favorite (thank GOD)–Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants. (Drives Joe insane, but I like it…) They also currently like African music…nothing like listening to your kids try to sing in Swahili while they are jumping off the furniture…
2. Doug | August 16th, 2005 at 7:13 am
Dan Zanes - highly reccommended. If you have a portable CD player anywhere you can hook it up through a casette tape adapter. I run my iPod through this as well.
3. Simon | August 16th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Foisted upon me immediately at the top of your post was an image of a bespectacled Edna Mode; the doughty, diminutive, raven-haired firebrand superhero outfit maker from the movie, The Incredibles.
She was raising her hands accusingly into the air and shouting, “No Volvos! No Saabs! No CD players in our cars!” Plus, you put a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on Sophie’s pic at the top of this site, she could almost BE her. Add in the attitude she seems to cop on the ‘worsest mommy in the world!’, and you have a little cartoon caricature living with you!
4. Karina | August 16th, 2005 at 9:00 am
Wasn’t one of your earlier blog entries called “In Praise of Drunken Sailors?” Things have come full circle already.
5. geogirl | August 16th, 2005 at 9:03 am
“Ahoy from Uncle Drunkie!”
I just lapsed into a fit of high pitched giggleing that caused everybody within a 4 cubicle radius to pop their heads up to see what was going on.
Great! They already think I’m crazy. Just wait until later when I start singing about Mammy because that song is now stuck in my head!
So help me, if I get slapped with a discrimination lawsuit at work I’m sending the lawyers to you…
6. the Mater | August 16th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Dare I mention “peanut butter and jelly, that’s what I like in my belly …” ? Bring back memories of your own childhood?
Putting this into its proper socio-historical context … you and your brother were raised on a steady diet of Christian contemporary kiddie songs! How could you ever forget your indoctrination? Joe Wise, Carey Landry, the Dameans, the Jesuits …
At least you were rising “like a sunflower” and filling up on “the joy of the Lord” and not in Mammy’s kitchen baking shortbread!!
Of course, you also had the added pleasure of live mom-and-dad musical renditions such as the unforgettable “I’m being eaten by a boa constrictor” …
See? I bet mammy and her drunken sailor are lookin’ pretty good by now :>)
7. Daniel | August 16th, 2005 at 10:13 am
Simon, I’m now rereading Jen’s entire post here in the voice of Edna Mode, and it’s all your fault.
We didn’t have children’s music, at least not that I remember; I was raised on bluegrass, because that’s what Dad liked. The steady rolling plonk of the five-string banjo, the insistent reedy whine of Bill Monroe. (Mom used to exile him from the house when he was practicing, for it is not possible to play the banjo quietly. Dad, I mean, not Bill Monroe. If Bill Monroe had been playing the banjo at our house, well that would be confusing because he plays the mandolin.)
And I turned out okay; neither I nor my sister show any propensity towards chewing bits of hay or wearing cowboy hats or even playing on the offbeat.
8. tina | August 16th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
yeah, don’t worry. all we had was harry belafonte, the carpenters and these weird korean love songs from the 70s whenever my uncle drove us. look how well i turned out.
9. tina | August 16th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
dude, you have a link to the shish kabob in the head article. that’s WEIRD. i love it.
10. R J Keefe | August 16th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Mozart makes them smarter!
11. geogirl | August 16th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Just for fun…I think we should all come up with our own version of what you should do with a drunken sailor.
Mine would probably involve the extender.
12. the Mater | August 16th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Tina - omigosh, you grew up with “weird Korean love songs” and we never used them in “My Mom Across America”?!!
Geogirl - ROTFLOL … ouch! That would sober a guy up pretty quickly or give new meaning to “a stiff drink”!!!
(Jenn, I swear … I don’t dwell on these remarks, they kinda catch me by surprise too! Am I setting a bad example for my granddaughters?!)
13. Spot the Wonder Dog | August 16th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
I have the South Park Movie soundtrack on cassette. You can borrow it if you want.
14. Simon | August 16th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Spot, you start spouting any sort of ‘Blame Canada’ nonsense, I’ll come right on down there and give you a whoopin’ with my beaver tail slathered in maple syrup. Mark my words.
15. Jenn | August 16th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
What I would not give to get all of you at the same table some wild evening. That would be one lively dinner party.
16. Karina | August 16th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
In addition to being strapped into the extender (Ha! Great suggestion!) maybe the drunken sailor should wake up wearing a muu muu, and with a casino logo tattooed to his forehead.
I just happened to re-watch the South Park movie last night. “Blame Canada” would probably be the least of a mother’s song selection worries.
Jenn, let me know when you’re going to have that dinner party! I’m so there!
17. geogirl | August 16th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Ummm….just as long as there’s no body painting.
18. Scott | August 17th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
We have some WIGGLES cassettes if you’re willing to give your souls and wallets over to the fab four from down under!
19. Daniel | August 17th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
What, geogirl, you’re okay with “the extender” but not with bodypainting??
Mixed messages! Mixed messages!
20. geogirl | August 17th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
We’re talking dinner party here!
I simply cannot abide hoojackapiffies hanging over my appetizers
21. Chopin Gal | August 17th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Suddenly combining the “wiggles” with hoojackapiffies and appetizers has caused me to lose my appetite :>(
Perhaps we should all get together at salon instead … you know, hangin’ around (oops, bad choice of words) … just socializing sans hors d’oeuvres and reading aloud our latest poetry, haiku, fanfic, whatever!
My God … haven’t we drifted completely off-topic?! Weren’t we talking about kiddie songs?!!
22. kris | August 18th, 2005 at 11:35 am
would you guys be interested in childrens books on tape?
You can often find them in the local bookstores. Zane listens to them, fairly well. The authors typically do a decent job of changing voices and such, to keep little ears standing at attention.
23. Alex | August 19th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
That reminds me–I have to send you my tapes of Song of the South!
24. Chopin Gal | August 22nd, 2005 at 1:45 pm
Omigosh, Alex - that was the very first movie I can remember from my childhood … hmm … I don’t think it was all that PC :>)
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