"What Do You Worka, John?'

"I have a message for all those people calling me a communist:  'communist' is spelled with a 'C'!"--David Steinberg

It's been a while since I wrote about my childhood memories.  We had a record player with quite a few children's records.  Our Golden Records and Spear Records were in 78 R.P.M., which they still had fifty years ago.  But the Peter Pan Records were 45s, which had a wider hole in the center back then.

One of our records had the song "Where Do You Worka John?" It was a duet--not for sensitive Italians--that went like this:

"Where do you worka, John?" "On the Delaware-Lackawanna!"
"What do you doa, John?" "I pusha, I pusha, I pusha!"
"What do you pusha, John?" "I pusha, I pusha da trucka!"
"Where do you pusha, John?" (together) "On the Delaware-Lackawannawannawannawan, the Delaware Lackawanna!"

I was looking it up online last night.  It's a novelty song from the 1920s, co-written by the great Harry Warren, who shared in three Best Song Oscars, and whose real name was Salvatore Guaragna.  The original song included verses like "Where do you worka, wop?" "On the Washington Monument top!" "What do you doa, wop?" "I pusha, I pusha da mop!" You can hear different versions on Youtube.

This evening I saw QUALITY BALLS, a documentary about comedian David Steinberg, at the Bloor.  It's been a while since I laughed this hard:  he's a shtick genius. (Director Barry Avrich was coming to answer questions, but he was a few minutes late so I didn't wait.)