Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah:

Smokler on April 4, 2006

Sherman

I listen (ugh) religiously to the Nextbook podcast, which is all about contemporary Jewish literature and culture. Recently they had an episode about Allan Sherman, a former television producer who later made his name writing song parodies by giving european standards Jewish American themes. His version of Frere Jacques went like this…

Sarah Jackman,
Sarah Jackman,
How’s by you? How’s by you?
How’s by you the family? How’s your sister Emily?
Still a Jew?

This was the early 1960s where you could still get away with advertising a job or an apartment as “Gentiles Only.” How to assimilate, how not to appear “too Jewish” weighed heavily on the minds of Allan Sherman and his contemporaries. Most of songs reflected the awkwardness and humor in these situations.

His most famous creation “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” has become a campfire classic. I always thought it was a Downey detergent commercial but I didn’t spend a lot of time at summer camp.

Sherman didn’t have a very happy life: failed marraiges, alcoholism, classic success gone-to-your-head story. But did create a few doopy little tunes that endure.

The whole story is here. Listen. It’s thrilling.

Solving the Music Problem:

Smokler on April 4, 2006

Like every other Apple head, I celebrated when the iTunes music store launched. Finally a pain-and-guilt free way of downloading music. Then I looked closer. Then I got screwed.

Everything you download from Apple is given protection from copying called DRM (Digital Rights Management). That means you pretty much can’t do anythng with the music you buy other than load it on to your iPod. Can’t send it to a friend, can’t dice it up for your podcasts, can’t really even copy it onto another computer. And if you buy a replacement iPod/computer/friend, be prepared to go through your entire music collection to see if it’s still there.

I finally got so annoyed with this setup that, if I wanted a song, I’d buy it on iTunes, download it illegally then delete the iTunes version. At least this way, I’d paid for a song and could use it how I liked. Also at this time, I maintained a membership with emusic (still do), which offers songs in free-and-clear mp3 format but has a catalog largely focused on indepedent and overlooked music. It’s a noble endeavor but I’m simply not that cool.

Enter All of MP3, a music store with both a deep catalog and worry free formating. It charges based on song size so an average 5 minute tune is roughly $.20, a full album $1.50. I hear they are based in Russia because I can’t imagine how else they get away with this.

No matter. Finally I’m both paying for music (which feels good) and getting it free from silly restrictions. Which feels better.

Mr. San Francisco:

Smokler on April 3, 2006

Caen

Today, April 3, is Herb Caen’s birthday. Herb Caen wrote the column “It’s News to Me” for the San Francisco Chronicle, from the late 1930s (shortly after the building of the Golden Gate Bridge) until 3 weeks before his death in 1997. He moved it to the competition, the San Francisco Examiner, from 1950-1958 and took time off to serve in WWII. Otherwise, he filed 1,000 a day, six days a week for 58 years. The lobby of the Chronicle keeps Caen’s typewriter on display to this day.

Caen’s column were a blend of local gossip and poetic pap about the city he loved. I say “pap” because Caen admitted he starting writing them as inch filler when he ran out of items. Nontheless, in those musings, he popularized the terms “hippie” and “beatnik” and coined the city’s nickname “Baghdad by the Bay.”

My old insurance man Dean once told me than when his father immigrated to San Francisco from Japan, he learned English by checking the newspaper out of the library and reading Herb Caen.

Sometimes I don’t think much of myself as a journalist or as a San Franciscan. At my worst, I practice both sporatically. On good days I think of Herb Caen, his consistency, his drive and his unending love for a city he wasn’t born into but that embraced him, most because he embraced them first.

Shortly before Caen’s eath, The city of San Francisco renamed a stretch of the Embarcader “Herb Caen Way.” During the dedication Caen said this…

“I think when I go to heaven, I’ll do as all San Franciscan’s do when they die. I’ll say ‘Heaven? It ain’t bad. But it’s no San Francisco.”

So true. I hope I meet Mr. Caen someday so I can say thank you. And tell him how our city is doing (via The Writer’s Almanac).