ODDS & ENDS AND A BIT OF HUMOR AND HUMOROUS INFORMATION

As you know, this is a music blog, and talking about every aspect of music is something I dearly love. I also mentioned that HUMOR is never far from my thoughts in any subject...but particularly in music. Musicians are a unique breed, and their humor tends to be on the weird side (which matches every musician's personality...with the exception of my own.) I'm trying to be funny here. I certainly AM weird and freely accept my fate.

My life in music and humor has included: Teaching (elementary, Jr. high, high school, college (both undergraduate and graduate school...everything except KINDERGARTEN!) Maybe I'll take a shot at that now that I'm in my second childhood. Performing (solo & combo piano player, bandleader, Vocalist (I got a late start on this one, having delayed singing until age 72 (at the behest and badgering of my wife, Robin.) Writing (a book about weddings, from the viewpoint of a bandleader, entitled WEDDING RECEPTION SECRETS.) And finally, humorist/entertainer.) This final category spilled over into all of the others

It's been a blast!

Well what about humor itself? One of the more erudite definitions of it is: "a violation of the law of inner congruity." Simply stated, you put simple things together in a way that produces absurdity. The more absurd you can make it, the funnier it is! People without a sense of humor think YOU are absurd. In other words, they have no class!

Let's get specific.

I've heard a lot of punch lines from night club comics. One guy closed his shows with this mock-serious line: "Just remember, folks...there's one thing that money can't buy: poverty!"

Another Rodney Dangerfield/Henny Youngman-type line:
(In the middle of a sequence) "Take my wife...please!" The guys like it better than the ladies...

Absurdity can occur because of a screw-up. One of my first gigs as a very young guy was to play some piano music one night at the Saranac Lake Elks Club. It was getting late in the evening when the lights suddenly went out. I thought it was a blown fuse! In the dark, I quickly fished around on the keyboard and launched some Halloween-type, "spooky" music. Three seconds later a bell began to chime very solemnly. I quit playing. The bell chimed exactly eleven times. When it stopped, a whiskey-sodden male voice commenced to recite a speech about Elks Club members; their mission; and what the Elks Club meant to all. At the conclusion, The male members in attendance intoned (in unison) "To our absent brothers..." It was then that I realized that I had made one of the first major musical goofs of my life. There were to be many more.

In an earlier place in this blog, I mentioned that my survival has been a miracle. In the course of getting to where I am, I placed my life and health in jeopardy many, many times. Let me finish this thought by giving you a clue of things to come. When I got my first chemistry set, I was in the 5th grade, or thereabouts. I feverishly explored the contents of the set, looking to formulate something. Guess what my first formulation was: GUNPOWDER. An ominous sign of things to come. Need I say more?

Let me conclude this brief dalliance into humor with another short tale.

Among their weird attempts a humor, musicians love to make up ridiculous titles for songs.
Here's an example: "I'll NEVER FORGET WHATS-HER-NAME." One time (I swear this is true)
I was with a musician who suggested as a title: "TAKE MY LOVE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR HEART.) I couldn't get the title out of my mind! I perceived it to be something that a well-meaning, oafish (perhaps "country") guy might say. The idea was that he was sincere, but everything he said to his sweetie came out wrong. So I wrote some lyrics for a song. The singer would explain his ineptitude in attempting to say nice things. He would reach the ideal end of his dilemma (he hoped) when his sweetheart would say (someday) the same words (the title) to Him! At this point he would respond: "And I'll take your love and shove it up my heart!"

The next thing I had to do was compose a tune for the words. I then made a great connection with Tim Hayden in Nashville (an arranging genius) and had him put together a "track" (or accompaniment) for the song. THEN I went to Sub-Cat Studio in Skaneateles, N.Y. (run by Ron Keck, an ex-student of mine) and in my best country voice sang the song! Oh, by the way (said he, slyly...) You can hear me doing this at Jango.com Remember the title, TAKE MY LOVE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR HEART. Search Phil Klein or the title. (I have three other country songs there, too...)

It looks as though this segment is going to end about here. This is such a ball! Hope you'll visit my blog again soon. Phil