Malcolm McLaren – "Madam Butterfly (Un bel di vedremo)" (1984)

Who on earth can it be

Coming up the path for me?

What on earth will he say?

Shall I run to him or run away?

In 1964, American philosopher Abraham Kaplan formulated “the law of the instrument”:

Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s restatement of the law of the instrument is more familiar:

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

The point both men were trying to make is that we need to be careful when choosing a tool to use.  It’s tempting to pull out the tool that we are most comfortable using, regardless of whether it is the best one for the job.

If you ask a law professor for help in solving a problem, you’ll probably be told that a new law is needed.

New laws are to law professors what hammers are to small boys.  Law professors tend to pound every troublesome situation they encounter with legislation.

*     *     *     *     *

Irina Manta is a law professor at Hofstra University who believes that there ought to be a law that punishes anyone who uses Tinder or another dating app to fool someone into having sex with him or her.

Law professor Irina Manta

Here’s an excerpt from her soon-to-be-published law review article that describes the kind of harm her proposal would address:

A prototypical hypothetical case is a man whom we shall call Marvin Simmons who claims to be single but is actually married.  A woman named Leila is using dating apps to find someone single who is open to the possibility of a serious monogamous relationship.  She is 39 years old and would ideally like to have biological children if she finds the right partner.  Marvin and Leila both right-swipe and a match is created.  

Marvin is most definitely not what she is looking for, but his lie misleads her into thinking that he is in the pool of people worth exploring.  They spend some time chatting and decide to meet for drinks. A few dates later, they begin having sex.  

Marvin is a busy business executive, so he can only meet once or twice a week.  Furthermore, he tells Leila that it has been a rough year for him – he got divorced a year ago and his mother died recently, so he wants to get to know someone slowly and feels the need to spend much of his rare free time alone or with friends.  

Leila has googled Marvin and while he does not really use social media (“Facebook is such a waste of time!” he told her), she finds a LinkedIn page with the name that he gave her and the information checks out.  Leila has no reason to assume that Marvin Simmons is a fake name.

Leila’s feelings for Marvin grow over time and she hardly dates other men any more.  After a few months, however, she becomes increasingly concerned because not only has he not introduced her to any of his friends, but they have still not been to his apartment.  His explanation made sense at first – his apartment was under renovation and her apartment was close to his work, so it seemed logical to hang out there during intimate times.  When Leila demands to see Marvin’s apartment, regardless of the state of the renovations, he finally confesses that he is actually married and his wife does not know about his extracurricular activities.

Feeling violated (i.e., recognizing the dignitary harm she suffered) and heartbroken (i.e., experiencing emotional harm), Leila is left without meaningful recourse.  She could tell Marvin’s wife what happened, if Leila even figures out his true identity, but violence could erupt and the wife may not believe that Leila was in the dark about his marital status that whole time.  Leila has no useful way to leverage social sanctions.  She has wasted months on him, and several more months pass before she is able to trust enough again and recover from the depression into which this incident plunged her.  Meanwhile, Leila turns 40, and the passage of time has diminished her odds of being able to conceive a child.  Marvin’s deceit was directly responsible for her inability to pursue her best interest.

There may well be a good match for Leila out there, but in addition to bringing about dignitary and emotional harm, individuals like Marvin greatly increase Leila’s search costs.  There is never a guarantee that a dating relationship will work out, but the relationship with Marvin was essentially doomed to failure from the start.  Similar to the scenarios that arise in trademarks, Leila could not get the “product” she wanted due to its misleading branding.  Marvin was using the romance equivalent of a deceptive trademark or of false advertising, which are actions prohibited by the Lanham Act and other laws in the commercial context.

Professor Manta believes that there should be a law giving Leila a legal cause of action against Marvin because he lied about his marital status so that she would have sex with him.

Because lawsuits are expensive, she would allow Leila to file her case against Marvin in small-claims court – where procedures are simplified, and where plaintiffs can represent themselves instead of hiring lawyers.

Because it is hard to measure the harm that Leila suffered in dollars, Professor Manta thinks the law should specify how much Marvin would have to pay if he is found guilty of sexual fraud.  

She suggests that $5000 might be an appropriate damages award.  Such an amount would certainly be sufficient to deter most potential fraudsters – especially serial fraudsters.

*     *     *     *     *

Professor Manta’s Leila-Marvin hypothetical is unusually detailed.  Because Professor Manta is une femme d’un certain age who freely admits to have used dating apps – in fact, she met her husband on Bumble, a “Sadie Hawkins”-style app where only the woman can make the first online move – I asked her if she herself had been a victim of sexual fraud by a married man.

An ad for the dating app Bumble

“No, that story is made up for hypothetical purposes,” she told me, “although I know people who have encountered elements that make up parts of the scenario.” 

A significant component of the damages Leila has suffered at the hands of Marvin relates to the time she has wasted in a relationship with a man who is not what he claims to be – and not what she is looking for.  According to Professor Manta, those wasted months are particularly precious to Leila – a 39-year-old women who wants to have children – because “women lose their fertility in a much more dramatic way than men” and because “their appeal to the male dating pool drops over time as well; women in their early to mid-20s are highly prized, after which there is a steady decline.”  

What if instead of swiping right on Marvin, Leila swiped right on Oliver – who was single, but who deceived Leila by claiming to be open to marriage, fatherhood, etc., when he was really only interested in a short-term sexual relationship?  

Or maybe Leila hooks up with Theodore, who admits from the beginning that he is married but claims that he is about to leave his wife when that’s not true?

Professor Manta’s proposal would not provide a legal remedy for Leila in such a case, even though Oliver’s or Theodore’s lies result in exactly the same harm to Leila as Marvin’s.

“We cannot and should not have the law intervene for this type of scenario,” she told me.  “I am interested in fairly binary pieces of information – whether the man is married but says that he isn’t, etc. – and not these kinds of things.”

Professor Manta’s proposal is also limited to cases where the woman had intercourse with the fraudster.  The value of Leila’s wasted time is the same whether she has had intercourse with Marvin during the course of their relationship or not.  So why would Professor Manta allow Leila to recover only if Marvin has persuaded her to sleep with him?

“We have to draw the line somewhere,” she explained, “and sexual intercourse seems like one logical point.  But I don't see a huge problem with using sexual penetration of any sort instead.  Ultimately, we are trying to estimate at what point significant dignitary and emotional harms are likely to kick in, and for most people that won't be at the stage of just kissing.”

In other words, the harm Leila suffers by wasting time with a married man is the same whether she has sex with Marvin or not.  But the emotional distress that results from Marvin’s lies is likely to be greater if she has had intercourse than if she and Marvin simply held hands or kissed. 

*     *     *     *     *

If you’re not a lawyer, you’ll might find the language Professor Manta uses to be rather odd.  Marvin increased Leila’s “search costs,” and caused her to suffer “dignitary harm”?  Leila has “no useful way to leverage social sanctions” against Marvin?  Marvin has engaged in “misleading branding” that’s akin to a marketer’s deceptive trademark?

This isn’t the way normal people look at the world, is it?

No, it’s not.  But it is the way that law students and law professors view life.

*     *     *     *     *

I enjoyed reading Professor Manta’s thoughtful article – for one thing, the topic is certainly a lot more juicy than that of the typical law review article – and I found it an interesting intellectual exercise to work my way through the specifics of her proposal.

While I can’t argue with Professor Manta’s conclusion that Leila has been harmed by Marvin’s deception, I doubt that her legislative proposal will be enacted into law.  Even if it does become law, I question how many Leilas would choose to pursue their Marvin in court.

I can live with that outcome because I think there are probably way too many laws and lawsuits in this country already.  It doesn’t really bother me that there’s not a legal remedy for every wrong that people encounter in everyday life.  Not all of our problems are nails that need to be pounded by a legal hammer.

*     *     *     *     *

So what do you do if  you’re Leila, and you want to put the hurt on Marvin – but there’s no law that allows you drag his sorry ass into court.

The answer should be obvious: You let your inner Glenn Close loose on that bastard!

*     *     *     *     *

“Un bel di vedremo” is an aria sung by the title character of Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera, Madam Butterfly.

At the end of that opera, Madame Butterfly commits suicide by cutting her throat. 

In the original version of the 1987 movie, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close’s character cuts her throat as “Un bel di vedremo” plays on the soundtrack.  

A few years before Fatal Attraction was released, the late Malcolm McLaren – the impresario behind the Sex Pistols – released Fans, an album that combined opera and R&B.

Click here to listen to McLaren’s adaptation of “Un bel di vedremo,” which made it all the way to #13 on the UK singles chart.

Click on the link below to buy that song from Amazon:  

Buffalo Springfield – "For What It's Worth" (1967)

A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and carrying signs

Mostly say, “Hooray for our side”

A couple of years ago, the governor of Maryland issued an executive order requiring Maryland schools to open after Labor Day and close by June 15 (absent unusual circumstances).  

Maryland law requires public schools to be open for at least 180 days per school year, and some county boards of education complained that not being allowed to start school before Labor Day made it very difficult for them to squeeze 180 days of instruction by June 15.  (Maryland law also requires that schools be closed on ten specified holidays, as well as primary and general election days.)

No school before Labor Day means
more beach time for Marylanders!

My county’s schools have been open for 184 days in recent years.  Board of education member Patricia O’Neill opposed pushing back the opening day of school to the day after Labor Day because she believed it would necessitate cutting the school year to 180 days.

“Personally, I think we are shortchanging children by using a shorter school calendar,” O’Neill said. “Our calendar should be going up in the number of days, not going down.”

*     *     *     *     *

Given that, you might wonder why Ms. O’Neill supports a proposal to allow students to skip three days of classes to participate in political protests and demonstrations.

“Learning doesn’t just occur in the classroom, it occurs in life experiences,” O’Neill told the Washington Post.

So it’s vitally important to have more days in the classroom – except when it’s not.

*     *     *     *     *

Public reaction to the proposal seems to be mostly negative:

I am in the school system in an instructional support capacity every day.  We already struggle to keep our students caught up and on the same page because of absences due to illness, family issues, truancy and testing.  Students already have the time to make their voices heard on designated days . . . it's called the weekend.  Ms. O'Neill should know better.

Here’s another comment from someone opposed to the proposal:

Oh good grief!  It’s not the job of schools to populate protest marches.  Stick to your mandate . . .  teach curriculum.  Students have ample opportunities on their own time through church, civic, and summer vacay-volunteerism to be “well rounded.”  How about you teach to educate and not have to grade-inflate, huh? 

This citizen believes in the old principle that “Children should be seen and not heard”:

Most of the world's problems can be chalked up to the fact that everybody thinks their opinion is way more important than it actually is. So let's make it easy for immature, impulsive teenagers to skip school and add their voices to the cacophony because we absolutely need to hear what's on their minds.  

*     *     *     *     *

One commenter questioned why students would be excused to march in a protest, but not to perform  public-service activities:

Volunteering at the senior center, working at a food bank, reading stories at the library, are as much a civic virtue as holding a sign. 

Several people pointed out that students are already free to protest on Saturdays, Sundays, and school holidays, and during summer break.  (If school is in session 180 days a year, that means students can march in demonstrations the other 185 days without missing a minute of school.)

We [who work in the schools] already struggle to keep our students caught up and on the same page because of absences due to illness, family issues, truancy and testing.  Students already have the time to make their voices heard on designated days . . . it's called the weekend.  Ms. O'Neill should know better.

And school is over at 2:30 PM,  which leaves plenty of time for afternoon and evening protesting.

*     *     *     *     *

Several of the commenters must have skipped school the day the teacher covered the First Amendment:  

Obviously this should only be for some protests and not others.  I mean, it isn’t right to excuse students for protesting against progressive policies – why would we support fascists that way?

Here’s a comment from another “progressive” commenter:

The school must be able to approve the marches.  We do not need kids supporting conservative causes like gun rights. 

(“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?  The hell you say.)

*     *     *     *     *

This commenter believes not only that students should be allowed to skip school to attend demonstrations, but that they be given extra credit for doing so:

Give them extra credit for attending demonstrations.  If they set fire to a limousine give them more credit.  If they threw feces on a Republican, even more.

*     *     *     *     *

Most of the discussion of the board of education’s proposal that I’ve seen haas overlooked one very salient fact.

That proposal allows students to skip three days of school each year to participate not only in “civic engagement activities” – that is, protests and demonstrations – but also in political campaigns.

In other words, students can miss three days of classes to stuff envelopes with candidate mail pieces, hand out political brochures, and make phone calls to potential voters.  

As I’ve noted above, students are already free to do all those things on weekends and after 2:30 pm.  But board of education members in my county are elected officials.  Having an additional source of free labor is likely to be irresistible to them.

I’m predicting the new policy will be approved . . . even though the protest sign carried by a local student in a recent protest march suggests that the three school days earmarked for "civic engagement activities" might be better spent teaching spelling:

“Your thougts [sic] and prayers are not enough”

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The 1967 Buffalo Springfield classic, “For What It’s Worth,” was featured on 2 or 3 lines just last year.

But it’s lyrics are perfect for the subject matter today’s post – plus it’s a great song. 

So I’m featuring it again.  (My blog, my rules.)

Click here to listen to “For What It’s Worth”:

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Seven Mary Three – "Cumbersome" (1995)

She’s wanting me less 

And I’m wanting her more

Last week, I spent the better part of two days riding the Virginia Capital Trail, a 52-mile-long paved bicycle trail that connects Jamestown (Virginia’s first capital) and Richmond (the state’s current capital).

The VCT traverses an area that is full of history, which explains why the Virginia Department of Historic Resources has placed no fewer than 44 historical markers along its course.

I didn’t stop to read all of the markers I rode past, but a few of them got my attention.

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The first successful English settlement in North America was named Jamestown in honor of King James I of England.

The first group of Jamestown settlers landed there in the spring of 1607.  A second group of colonists crossed the Atlantic and joined them in 1608, and a third contingent came ashore in October of that year.

That third group of settlers included eight German, four Polish, and two Slovakian craftsmen.  Those Poles are commemorated on a historical marker placed at the eastern terminus of the VCT in Jamestown:

Here’s the text of that marker:

Skilled craftsmen of Polish origin recruited by the Virginia Company began arriving in Jamestown aboard the Mary Margaret about 1 Oct. 1608.  Poles contributed to the development of a glass factory and the production of potash, naval stores, and wood products.  Soon samples of their work were shipped back to England.  The workers were so highly prized that they were assigned apprentices so that their skill "shall not dye with them."  Capt. John Smith praised their work ethic in his writings.  Court records indicate that as a result of a labor dispute, Poles were granted full voting rights on 21 July 1619.

*     *     *     *     *

While the Poles were model citizens, the Germans who had come to the New World with them quickly bailed on Jamestown and defected to a neighboring Paspehegh Indian settlement.

That may have been because the colonists were in desperate need of food.  Or it may have been because they were in desperate need of women.

A Virginia Capital Trail rider

There were over a hundred settlers in Jamestown at the beginning of 1609, but only two of them were women.   

Presumably the male-to-female ratio in the nearby Paspehegh villages was much more favorable than it was in Jamestown.

*     *     *     *     *

The Paspeheghs were not particularly welcoming to the Jamestown settlers – although they did sell them some corn in the winter of 1607-08 (when the colonists were starving).

The two groups skirmished repeatedly over the next year.  In one of these clashes, Captain John Smith captured Wowinchapuncke, the Paspehegh chief.  When Wowinchapuncke escaped, Smith retaliated by raiding his village and killing several of his men.   

(The Paspeheghs were a sub-tribe of the Powhatans, whose chief was named Wahunsunacock.  His brother was Opechancanough.  Opechancanough, Wahunsunacock, and Wowinchapuncke don’t exactly fall trippingly from the tongue.)

A Paspehegh and a Jamestown colonist square off

In 1610, the English attacked the Paspehegh capital, killing 70 or so members of the tribe and capturing one of Wowinchapuncke’s wives and her children.  On the way back home, they threw the children into the James River, then shot and killed them.  After arriving at Jamestown, they stabbed the wife to death.

Wowinchapuncke was mortally wounded in 1611, and that was the end of the Paspeheghs. 

*     *     *     *     *

This marker is located about six miles northwest of Jamestown, just before the VCT crosses the Chickahominy River:

Here’s what it says:

Wowinchapuncke was the chief of the Paspahegh Indians when the English established Jamestown in the tribe's territory in 1607.  He consistently resisted the English intrusion, earning both respect and hostility from Jamestown leaders.  Captured and imprisoned at Jamestown, he escaped, and the English retaliated by killing several Paspahegh men.  After the English destroyed a Paspahegh town in August 1610 and executed Wowinchapuncke’s wife and children, he continued to harass the English until he was killed in a skirmish near Jamestown in February 1611.  In 1991, the archaeological remains of a large Paspahegh community near here were excavated.

*     *     *     *     *

A few miles southeast of the bridge that carries the VCT over the Chickahominy River is a marker commemorating the Battle of Green Spring, a Revolutionary War engagement that took place there:

Here’s what is written on the marker:

Nearby, late in the afternoon of 6 July 1781, Gen. Charles Cornwallis and cavalry commander Col. Banastre Tarleton with 5,000 British and Hessian troops clashed with 800 American troops commanded by Brig. Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne and the Marquis de Lafayette.  Believing that the main British force was across the James River, and that he was attacking Cornwallis's rear guard, Wayne soon realized that he was facing far superior numbers.  He startled the advancing British forces by charging them, exchanging volleys, and then withdrawing his troops from encirclement and certain defeat.  Dusk prevented Cornwallis from pursuing the Americans.

Cornwallis anticipated that Lafayette might attack his rear guard once the main body of his army had utilized the Jamestown ferry to cross over to the south bank of the James River.  So he kept most of his forces on the north bank of the river and laid a trap.

American general “Mad” Anthony Wayne walked right into that trap with his 800 troops.  Lafayette could see what was happening from his vantage point, but he and the forces under his command were simply too far away from Wayne to do anything about his plight.

General “Mad” Anthony Wayne

Wayne ordered his men to fix bayonets and countercharge the numerically superior British army.  It was a high-risk, high-reward tactic, but it worked.  Wayne’s attack put the British on their heels long enough for Lafayette to arrive with reinforcements.  The Americans were able to retreat in an orderly fashion, and Cornwallis chose not to press his advantage because it was getting dark.

Cornwallis ferried the remainder of his army across the James River, and made his way to Yorktown, where George Washington’s Continental Army – assisted by French troops and the French fleet – eventually surrounded him.  

With no hope of reinforcement or resupply, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington on October 19.  His surrender essentially ended the Revolutionary War.

*     *     *     *     *

Jason Ross and Jason Pollock formed Seven Mary Three when they were students at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA – which is just a few miles from Jamestown.

Ross and Pollack got the idea for the name of their band from the old CHIPs TV show.  Seven Mary Three was the radio call sign for Officer Jon Baker – who was portrayed by Larry Wilcox.   

The call sign for Officer “Ponch” Poncherello – who was played by Erik Estrada – was Seven Mary Four.

Bruce Jenner on “CHIPs”

I bet you didn’t know that when Estrada held out for a bigger share of the show’s profits during its fifth season, he was replaced by Bruce Jenner.  (Estrada returned to the show after missing seven episodes.) 

Click here to listen to “Cumbersome.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

The Naked Brothers Band – "Fishin' for Love" (2007)

She reads magazines

And eats green beans

And she whines till the day is done 

For years, my contribution to our family’s Thanksgiving feast has been peas and mushrooms.  (I recommend the recipe from the 1953 edition of The Joy of Cooking.) 

But this year, I’m making green bean casserole in honor of the late Dorcas Reilly.

Dorcas Reilly serves up her
famous green bean casserole

Reilly, who died last month at age 92, created hundreds of recipes during her years as the manager of the Campbell Soup kitchen.

But the green bean casserole recipe that she came up with in 1955 – which combines green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and crispy fried onions – was by far the most popular.  

*     *     *     *     *

Reilly’s green bean casserole is a Thanksgiving staple.  According to Campbell Soup, that dish is served at nearly 30 million Thanksgiving dinners each year.

If you’ve never eaten green bean casserole on Thanksgiving, you’re not a real American, and should go back to wherever it was you came from!

Andy Warhol was a fan

Here’s the recipe, straight off the Campbell Soup website:

Ingredients:

1 can (10 1/2 ounces) Campbell's cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 dash black pepper

4 cups cooked cut green beans

1 1/3 cups French's french-fried onions

Directions:

In a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish, combine the soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions.

Bake at 350°F. for 25 minutes or until the bean mixture is hot and bubbling.  Stir and sprinkle with the remaining onions.

Bake for 5 more minutes or until the onions are golden brown.

*     *     *     *     *

Dorcas Reilly’s original recipe is good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you as well.  

But Campbell Soup couldn’t resist gilding the lily.  

She's a beauty!

In addition to its classic green bean casserole recipe, ithe Campbell’s website offers up recipes for “Green Bean Casserole Dijon” (Dijon mustard and swiss cheese) and “Green Bean Casserole Italiano” (sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and Italian herbs and spices).

Dijon mustard?  Sun-dried tomatoes?  (Poor Dorcas Reilly must be rolling over in her grave.)

*     *     *     *     *

Surprisingly, there are quite a few songs that mention green beans.  I think “Fishing for Love” is the best of the bunch.

“Fishing for love” was featured on the soundtrack of the fourth episode of “The Naked Brothers Band,” a mockumentary series about two brothers who dreamed of being in a famous rock band.  It aired on Nickelodeon in 2007-2009. 

The show’s creator was Polly Draper, who was one of the stars of the Thirtysomething series back in the day.  When Draper’s two sons were little boys taking a bath together, one suddenly stood up and announced, “We’re the Naked Brothers Band!”  Hence, the title of the Nickelodeon series – which starred her sons, Nat and Alex Wolff. 

Nat and Alex Wolff

Nat and Alex, who were only 12 and 9 (respectively) when “The Naked Brothers Band” debuted, wrote and performed all of the show’s songs.

After the third season of the show had wrapped, Nickelodeon proposed lengthening the fourth season from 13 episodes to 60 episodes.  Polly Draper and her husband were afraid such an ambitious shooting schedule would interfere with the boys’ schooling – ya think? – and turned the network down.

Click here to listen to “Fishing for Love.”

You can click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Ian Thomas – "Painted Ladies" (1973)

Feeling fine, mama

Painted ladies and a bottle of wine, mama

Penn State archaeologist Dean Snow believes that the relative length of the fingers in the hundreds of prehistoric cave art handprints indicates that most of the painters were women.

Prehistoric cave art handprints

But when University of Alaska evolutionary biologist R. Dale Guthrie measured those handprints, he concluded that they had been left by adolescent boys.

Guthrie also believes that the predominant subject matter of the cave paintings – “naked women and large, frightening mammals” – is indicative that the artists who created them were males.

*     *     *     *     *

Male artists have come a long way since prehistoric times, of course.  Modern artists not only paint naked women, but also women with clothes on.  (We men have come a long way, baby!)

Here are a dozen paintings of women by male artists that I saw earlier this year during visits to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium:

Abbott Handerson Thayer, Angel (1887)

Henry Siddons Mowbray, Idle Hours (1895)

Henry Brown Fuller, Illusions (circa 1895)

William R. Leigh, Sophie Hunter Colston (1896)

Emile Claus, Portrait of the
Artist Anna De Weert (1899)

Frederick Carl Frieseke, Nude
Seated at Her Dressing Table (1909)

Robert Reid, The Mirror (1910)

Ferdinand Hodler, Woman in Ecstasy (1911)

Felice Casorati, Young Girl on a Red Carpet (1912)

Torajiro Kojima, Woman Reading (1921)

Francis Criss, Alma Sewing (1935)

Edgard Tytgat, Four Nude Girls in a Boat (1950)

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Today’s featured song sounds more like an America song than most America songs.  But not only was it not recorded by America, it wasn’t even recorded by an American.

“Painted Ladies,” which made it to #34 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1973, was recorded in 1973 by Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Thomas.

Thomas is the younger brother of comedian Dave Thomas, who was one of the funniest cast members on the funniest TV sketch show ever – Second City Television, or SCTV.  (Ian once appeared on “The Great White North,” a regular SCTV feature that starred Dave and Rick Moranis as moronic, beer-loving Canadians.)  

Click here to listen to “Painted Ladies.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: