Klarinet Archive - Posting 000233.txt from 1994/09

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Paducah! Paducah!
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 22:59:29 -0400

Last night (Sunday, Sept. 25) while waiting for the baseball show to come
on PBS, I was channel surfing and came to "AMC" or the movie channel that
specializes in movies from the 30s through the 60s. And there was a movie
with Benny Goodman and his band that I never saw before (and may not want
to ever see again).

Benny was NOT playing with his band, he was singing. Yuck. Barf. Ugh.
And what was this gem of a song that they had the best jazz clarinet
player singing under the presumption that he needed to show more of his
talent than just playing clarinet????? It was a song of such monstrous
awfulness in the lyrics that they are frozen in my head.

They went:

"Paducah, paducah
It rhymes with bazooka
In this city in Kentucky
Where you can feel lucky"
etc. until you choke.

And there is this great band trying very hard to give the appearance that
they just love to be on the road with Benny singing. Jess Stacy was on
piano, Gene Krupa on drums, all looking so happy as if they were going to
burst.

BUT WAIT. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.

Suddenly Benny finishes and goes back to be with the band and out comes
Carmen Miranda, the latin bombshell and samba queen, with a hat made of
6 pounds of fruit on her head, bandana around her butt, and she starts singing
"PADUCAH, PADUCAH. IT RHYMES WITH BAZOOKA." This lady who only sang
cucaracha songs is stuck with this piece of dreck, and Benny is smiling like
it is the best thing he has ever been associated with. And Gene Krupa is
smiling like his throat was cut.

And then the whole thing jumps into a latin rhythm with Samba dancing to this
awful song. It was horrible. Like a nightmare.

What was this movie??? I never saw it before. I never even knew that
Benny made such a god awful stinker with Carmen Miranda (who was so ugly
that no one in Hollywood ever suggested a casting couch to her).

Somebody tell me I made a mistake. That it was all a dream. That no such
movie with Benny Goodman humiliating himself before all humanity was ever made.
And for this man Bartok wrote the contrasts?

After this disaster was over, my wife and I spent 30 minutes trying to find
another rhyme for Paducah and we struck out. Perhaps "Shove it up your
gazooka" might have been better.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
(leeson@-----.edu)
(dnl2073@-----.edu)
Any of the above three addresses may be used. Take your pick.
====================================