"Bye Bye Birdie" Film Soundtrack – "Kids" (1963)

Kids!

I don't know what's wrong

With these kids today!

Alexandre Dumas had it right when he wrote, “Cherchez la femme!”

The phrase – which translates to “Look for the woman!” – became a cliche in crime fiction.  When a murder was committed in an old-school mystery novel, it was a safe assumption that a woman was somehow responsible for it.

If the woman didn’t commit the murder herself, she usually was the reason for the crime.  Perhaps she manipulated the murderer into doing the deed on her behalf.  Or perhaps the murderer was a jealous husband or boyfriend seeking revenge after being rejected by her. 

So cherchez la femme when there’s a murder to be solved, and you will usually be able to solve it. 

*     *     *     *     *

So there I was . . . zooming along on my bike on the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Yarmouth . . . minding my own business . . . when I saw four tweens on bikes approaching me from the other direction.

I keep my eyes wide open when I’m on a busy bike trail.  The biggest hazards are people walking dogs on long leashes, and little kids on bikes that wander across the center line into oncoming traffic.

Because I watch everyone on the trail, I wasn’t taken unaware when the four tweens yelled at me loudly as they passed me – I saw them open their mouths as we were about to pass each other.  

Good thing I was paying attention to them – if I had been daydreaming, the unexpected screams could have startled me and caused me to veer off the trail into a tree.

Which was exactly what the tweens were hoping would happen, of course.

*     *     *     *     *

I had planned to ride a couple of more miles to the east before turning around and returning to my car.  But after ruminating on what had happened, I decided to turn around at the next intersection and go in hot pursuit of the four brats.  

I figured that I was a much faster rider than they were, and that it wouldn’t take me long to run them down.

I was right.  After a minute or two, I had the perpetrators in sight.  You’d best believe they were not expecting to see me when I pulled up next to them, ordered them to stop – which they did – and began to berate them (loudly) for trying to make me have an accident.

The group consisted of three boys and one girl.  The biggest of the boys quickly denied any evil intent, although he had nothing to say when I asked him why he and his pals yelled at me.

I pulled out my phone and told the lead rider – a dweebish, slack-jawed lad – that I was going to send his picture to the authorities.

As I turned to photograph the other three, the girl told her partners-in-crime to cover their faces, which they did:

Cherchez la femme!

*     *     *     *     *

Of course the girl was the ringleader.  Cherchez la femme, after all.  

“You can’t take our picture!” she shouted as she covered up.  “It’s illegal!”

“No, it’s not!” I replied.  “I know because I’m a lawyer!”  (Not a very snappy comeback, I admit.)

As she tried to pedal away, I caught up and rode next to her so I could continue our discussion.

“Stop following me!” she yelled. “I’ll call the police!”

“Please do!” I answered. “We can have a little chat with them together!”

I was bluffing, of course.  I knew I was 100% in the right – it was absolutely clear what these little whippersnappers were up to – but I didn’t really want to get into it with a manipulative 13-year-old girl in front of the po-po.  All she would have to do was start crying and claim I had touched her, and I could have found myself telling it to the judge.

*     *     *     *     *

Here’s a postscript to this tale.

Two days later, I was riding the same stretch of the rail trail when I saw that little b**** and the big lug who had almost wet his pants when I initially confronted them.

She gave me the evil eye and loudly ordered me to go away – she wasn’t a bit afraid of me.

I played it cool, and simply smiled and waved at her I rode by.  (Guess I showed her, huh?)

*     *     *     *     *  

“Kids” is one of the most memorable songs from Bye Bye Birdie, a very successful Broadway musical that opened in 1960 and was made into a movie a few years later.

The original Broadway cast of Bye Bye Birdie included Dick Van Dyke as the male lead, Albert Peterson.  When Van Dyke had to take two weeks off to film the pilot episode of his eponymous CBS television sitcom, he was temporarily replaced by Charles Nelson Reilly, who I remember mostly from his years as a panelist on The Match Game.  (Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers cracking wise on The Match Game – that was some must-see television!)

Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett
Somers, and Gene Rayburn

Speaking of The Match Game, the show’s host – Gene Rayburn – took over the Albert Peterson role on Broadway when Van Dyke left the production about a year after the show opened.

The original Broadway cast also included Paul Lynde, who sat in the center square on The Hollywood Squares for 13 years.  The host of The Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall played Albert Peterson in the London production of Bye Bye Birdie.

Small world, eh?

Click here to listen to the movie soundtrack recording of “Kids.”

Click below to buy that recording from Amazon:

Sandra Bernhard – "Manic Superstar" (1991)

I know what I want

But I just don't know

How to get it

Sandra Bernhard's "Manic Superstar" is a mashup of "Everything's Alright" (from Jesus Christ Superstar) and the great Jimi Hendrix song, "Manic Depression."

The late Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was left-handed.  I am also left-handed.  Other than that, we have about as much in common as the two very dissimilar halves of "Manic Superstar."

For example, Hendrix was black, while I am white.

Hendrix was a fabulous guitarist, while I am a fabulous pianist.

Another difference between us is that JIMI HENDRIX IS DEAD.  I am not dead.

And there's this: Jimi Hendrix knew what he wanted but didn't know how to get it, while I don't really know what I want.

*     *     *     *     *

The Board of Selectmen of Orleans, Massachusetts, knew what they wanted when it came to the hundreds of cormorants that were roosting on the power lines that spanned Cedar Pond – they wanted to get rid of them.

Roosting cormorants at Cedar Pond

And the selectmen thought they knew how to get what they wanted.  But it turns out that they couldn't have been wronger.

Why were the town officials trying to get rid of the cormorants?  Because they were pooping in the 15-acre pond.  That resulted in an increase in the pond's nitrogen and phosphorous content, which resulted in the pond becoming covered with algae.  (Yuck!)

The town wanted the local electric utility to put the power lines underground.  The estimated cost of doing that is $1.1 million, which would be passed on to the utility's customers.  (It's so easy to spend other people's money, isn't it?)

In the meantime, the geniuses on the Board of Selectman decided to pay the U.S. Department of Agriculture $6500 to scare the cormorants away by shooting fireworks at them.

A double-crested cormorant

I feel a little sheepish admitting that even though I've lived in Our Nation's Capital for my entire adult life, I didn't know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is who you call when you need someone to go after pooping birds with pyrotechnics.

The USDA went after the fish-eating cormorants with "screamers" which they fired from kayaks.  ($6500 to shoot fancy bottle rockets at birds from kayaks?  I guarantee you that it wouldn't have taken more than ten minutes to find a dozen teenaged boys who would have been thrilled to do the job for free.)

Click here to see a short video featuring screamers.

*     *     *     *     *

Unfortunately, things quickly went awry the first night the fireworks were used.

The Cape Cod Times reported that a local resident who was driving nearby when the USDA began blasting the birds posted on Facebook that his truck was hit by the fireworks:

“[S]everal sky rockets struck the side of my truck, including the glass of the passenger's window,” the person wrote.  “If I'd had the windows down like I normally do the rockets would've gotten inside and I'm pretty sure I'd have totalled my truck.”

It's hard to believe that something went wrong with this well-thought-out plan, isn't it?  After all, according to the Times, "[t]hree USDA officials were on the scene, including one who was specifically there to make sure nothing went wrong."

The following evening, the USDA resumed the bombardment of the poor cormorants, which did appear to put a serious dent in the number of birds roosting on the power lines.

USDA headquarters in Washington, DC

But the effect of the screamers was short-lived.  According to a woman described by the Times as an "Orleans resident and bird-counter," there were some 150 birds back on the wire a week after the fireworks assault. 

USDA launched its kayaks and lit off another salvo of screamers the next night, which reduced the population of Cedar Pond cormorants significantly.  Unfortunately, observers said that the number of birds roosting on a power line over nearby Little Depot Pond had increased by a like amount.  (As my late grandmother used to say, "Six of one, a half-dozen of the other.")  

The Cape Cod Rail Trail goes right by Little Depot Pond.  When I rode my bike past the pond, there were a fair number of cormorants sitting on the power lines over that pond:  

Roosting cormorants at Little Depot Pond

One local resident complained to the Times that the fireworks were terrifying her pet dog.  "He just trembles and tries to hide," she told a reporter.  

The disgruntled pet owner was skeptical of the whole fireworks idea.  "The birds aren't really stupid.  They're just going to move to another pond," she said.  "It just seems crackers to me."

*     *     *     *     *

Sandra Bernhard (circa 1990)

Sandra Bernhard is kind of crackers herself.  She was brilliantly weird in the brilliantly weird Martin Scorsese movie, King of Comedy (which starred Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis), and I'll never forget her fabulous 1990 movie, Without You I'm Nothing (based on her one-woman off-Broadway show). 

Click here to buy Without You I'm Nothing from Amazon.

DeNiro and Bernhard in "King of Comedy"

Bernhard proved once and for all that a female comedian could be as dirty and funny as any male comedian.  One-trick-pony female comedians like Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler, and Amy Schumer may match Sandra Bernhard when it comes to talking dirty, but Bernhard was a much more interesting and multifaceted performer than her wannabes.

Click here to listen to "Manic Superstar," which was released on Bernhard's 1991 album, Excuses for Bad Behavior (Part One).