He Jes Keep Rolling along

A song (with great apologies to Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein sung to the tune of their "Ol' Man River") to honor the news that Ramajit Raghav, a Kharkhoda (India) farm laborer who at 94 is now living on a pension and has a new son, "god's gift" Karamjit, thanks to the help of his 50 year old wife:

Dere's an ol' river called de Ganges
Dat's de ol' river dat Raghav see!
What does he care if de world's got troubles?
What does he care if no land has he?

Ol' man Raghav,
Dat ol' man Raghav
He mus'know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
At 94 he's rollin''
He keeps on rollin' along.

He don' plant taters,
He don't plant cotton,
An' dem dat plants'em
is soon forgotten,
But ol'man Raghav,
He jes keeps rollin'along.

You an'me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,
Tote dat barge!
Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk
An' you land in jail.

Ah gits weary
An' sick of tryin'
Ah'm tired of livin'
An' skeered of dyin',
But new father Raghav,
He jes' keeps rolling' along.

He's 94, wife's 50-sometin,
Baby Karamjit a little dumplin',
He ain't got money from de dawn to sunset,
Gittin' no rest till de judgement day.

Don't look up
An' don't look down,
Kharkhoda farmer
Grab de oldest father crown.
Bend your knees
An'bow your head,
An' pull date rope
Until you' dead.
 
Ol' man Raghav,
Dat ol' man Raghav
He mus'know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
At 94 he's rollin''
He keeps on rollin' along.

Ah, gits weary
An' sick of tryin'
Ah'm tired of livin'
An' skeered of dyin',
But ol' man Raghav,
He jes'keeps rollin' along!

Afro Pop Supreme

How great can you be if your father will always be greater? That is the question faced by Femi Kuti, oldest son of Afrobeat legend — and focus of a Broadway hit —  Fela Kuti and musical force in his own right.


As a recent NY Times piece had it, "As Fela’s oldest son, Mr. Kuti, 48, is in an unusual, demanding and potentially contradictory position." His father was a self-celebratory political and cultural force, but the son must celebrate his father, his father's music and be honest and true to the sound that make Femi Kuti a force on the stage.

Poster Dad

Got a few moments? Knock off some humorous tales of dad. Clarence Day Jr. knocked off some sketches of Sr. and family life in the late 1800s and early 1900s , which resulted in his first book, Life with Father. From the 1935 book came the 1939 play — which became Broadway's longest non-musical — and eventually the movie.

It is the movie that serves as subject for this week's objet d'eBay, a poster featuring stars Irene Dunne, William Powell and Elizabeth Taylor (as Clarence Day Jr. ?) Was every story exactly true to life? Unforutnately, nobody had the chance to ask Day as he passed shortly after finishing the book and before it became a hit.

Moral of the story? Write and honor your dad soon so you can enjoy the success his stories and your talent will bring.

Lessons of Cruelty

Hitting dad on the head with a hammer is a bad idea. It doesn't matter if you think as 58-year-old Jayantibhai Patel did that he thought it was the only way to get his 81-year-old dad into a nursing home. Repeat: it's a bad idea. Don't do it. Talking mean bad; hitting worser.

It's not the only bad idea involving cruelty between parent and child — and violence is usually frowned upon for good reason. And, no, it is not enough to rationalize or plead before a judge that you needed to be Cruel to be Kind:



Not that cruelty can't be enjoyable to watch (although in real life consequences have to be understood before they are realized. Currently on Broadway is a display of son turning on father. Intriguingly, fathers John Lithgow and Patrick Wilson are the actors in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," although their personal experience is influenced by and influences the resonance that they bring to lines such as:

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t forgive him, because he’s my son.”

and

“I know you’re no worse than other men, but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.”

Father Fictions

A dead daddy wins Hannah Montana concert tickets! At least in essay form. [Earlier: Anything Ginger Rogers Can do ... and Faster and Achy Breaky Dad]

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win,'' said the mom. "We did whatever we could do to win.'' Which included making up a father who died in Iraq.

On a more reasonable note of father fiction, playwright Tracy Letts wrote of a dysfunctional father and family in Oklahoma and his father, Dennis Letts, having a personal, if not intimate, relationship with the material gets to take a star turn on Broadway in his son's "August: Osage County." Matching Tonys for father and son?

** Always beware the lure of the make-believe dad. **