03/02/07
As I am sure my readers are aware, The Rambling Man receives several bags of email every day. About 98% of these communications are, of course, words of appreciation for the hilarity put forth on a weekly basis in the Friday Ramble. The other 5% include offers to have The Rambling Man’s children, inquiries about personal appearances, and requests for more Friday Rambles of a historical nature. Today’s Friday Ramble will please those who inquire about the history lessons.
It is a well known historical fact that the musical instrument known as the “jumping flea” originated on the South Seas island of Kommonawannalaya sometime in the 1870’s. Soon after being invented, the instrument was brought to the Hawaiian Islands where it became a big part of the local culture. It was so popular in Hawaii that it eventually became identified as a Hawaiian institution, much like coconut shell bongo drums and the legendary beach boy, I. M. Hung. This, of course, is only part of the true story and leaves out some of the most important details. The Rambling Man will now fill in the historical blanks.
Chief Lakkanookie, of the Polynesian PooPoo Poi tribe, was walking along the beach one day in 1870 when the dulcet tones of a stringed instrument he had never heard before came to his ear. Sadly, the chief only had one ear because the island had run out of virgins to sacrifice to the gods. And since everyone on the island had at least two, ears had been substituted instead. This, for obvious reasons, set the sunglasses industry on the island back by decades. When the chief finally found the source of the music he discovered it was being played by (you guessed it) my Great Great Uncle Snoop Dogg Arnold. It seems Great Uncle Snoop had been shipwrecked on the island a few days earlier, and the only things he could salvage from the ship had been a cigar box (in which he kept his stash) and four pieces of string. It was shortly after wrapping the contents of the cigar box in palm tree leaves and smoking all of it that Uncle Snoop decided to try to make something out of the, now empty, cigar box and strings. Being into the S&M bondage scene, first Uncle Snoop decided to use the strings to tie up the cigar box. But, since the box didn’t protest it wasn’t as much fun as he thought it would be. Then he threw the strings up in the air and let the wind take them while he sat on the box. But, after a few hours, that got boring. Finally it came to him. He found a short stick which coincidentally already had some frets in it and stapled it to one end of the cigar box. Then he walked down the beach and found the four strings which had blown away and pulled them tight from the end of the stick to the end of the cigar box. Then he sat down on it again. After another few hours he decided that was about as much fun as sitting on the box and throwing the strings into the air. So he picked up the box and in doing so accidentally ran his fingers across the tightly stretched strings. The sound it made was amazing, especially since it was so badly out of tune. Once Uncle Snoop got his new discovery tuned he immediately wrote the first song played on that instrument, “Tiptoe through the Hemp Plants”.
Uncle Snoop didn’t name his new instrument for several years. He tried some different names from time to time, but “empty stash box” and “my string thing” just didn’t seem to work. It was the night Uncle Snoop got caught messing around with local island beauty Lele Lailani by his girlfriend, Uke Lottabooty, that he decided to name it the “uke lele”, thus assuring Uke she would always come first in his heart, and in other ways we won’t go into at this time.
The ukulele, or Uke as Uncle Snoop liked to call it, began to catch on around the world and Uncle Snoop found himself in demand to demonstrate his new invention. A few years later the ukulele became very popular in the United States, especially with raccoon coat clad fraternity boys who used it to hide their flasks of illegal hooch. It was about this time that Uncle Snoop taught a guy named Cliff Edwards to play the ukulele. Edwards went on to fame (?) and fortune as the entertainer known as “Ukulele Ike”. While this may seem like an insignificant fact to some, let me now reveal that “Ukulele Ike” went on to find a place in the hearts of many of us as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in several Disney films (he sang the Academy Award winning song, “When You Wish Upon a Star”). Sadly, the uke lost some of its popularity in the US when, in 1941, pictures were distributed of Adolph Hitler playing a ukulele at a Nazi Hootenanny. It wasn’t until a gentleman by the name of Arthur Godfrey, a tropical shirt wearing, tropical island loving radio and television entertainer (the 1950’s version of Jimmy Buffett) made the uke popular again by constantly playing one on his show. He even gave lessons on the radio so the thousands of people who bought ukes, just because he played one, could play along with him. Godfrey and Uncle Snoop played together many times on radio and television, but sadly never recorded a duet.
The name Herbert Buckingham Khaury may not mean anything to most people, but to a ukulele player it’s legendary and sacred. Khaury single handedly made the ukulele a household word in the 1960’s by recording the hit song “Tiptoe through the Tulips” (a blatant rip off of Uncle Snoop Dogg’s song) under the stage name Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim was everywhere in the 60’s (or because of what we were smoking did it just seem that way?). He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, Laugh-In, Hollywood Squares and prompted one of the most highly viewed moments in television history by getting married on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. I, and my son Jason, once had the rare honor of actually meeting and talking to Tiny Tim. Jason still thinks of it as one of the highlights of his childhood, and understandably so. On that occasion I was able to obtain a personally autographed 8X10 photo of Mr. Tim which how hangs in a place of honor here in The Rambling Man office complex, right next to my autographed picture of Marilyn Chambers.
And so, with the heritage of having the actual inventor of the ukulele in my family is it any wonder The Rambling Man purchased just such an instrument on a visit to Hawaii a couple of months ago? I must admit, this thing really is fun to play. And for all of the Friday Ramble fans who may wish to hire me to play at parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, bris’, or super market openings, I want to assure all of you that I do plan to learn to play “Tiptoe through the Tulips”, right after I learn to play Margaritaville.
Uncle Snoop Dogg and I are planning a nationwide ukulele tour for the latter part of this year. Keep checking The Rambling Man’s website for announcements of which cities we will be visiting and how Friday Ramble readers can obtain tickets at a discount. And don’t forget our 2-disc CD collection titled, “The Greatest Ukulele Hits of Mozart, Beethoven and Spike Jones” is now on sale at massage parlors and adult bookstores near you.