Posted: Friday, 27 June 2008 11:10AM
Everybody Do The Kielbasa
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, June 27, 2008
Big-boned and bouncy, Stella sure could polka. Taking the lead, she moved me around the dance floor at Laceys in Nanticoke until my feet hurt that night so many years ago.
I thought I was good.
But Stella was better.
So I followed her lead until the music ended and she all but tossed me aside like a stale pierogi, an inadequate partner who simply wasn’t up to her standards.
So much for my public polka debut.
But I’m ready this time.
And I wonder if she might be part of Saturday’s gala wedding reception at Genetti’s in Wilkes-Barre for Melissa Ann and Michael, the son of my longtime polka pal, Jolly Joe.
Jolly Joe, who took me to Laceys that night and introduced me to Stella, is polka royalty. His dad, Lefty, was a polka king who ruled with his accordion and his old-school ways learned in Warrior Run. Joe’s mom, a stately woman who reigned amid the chaos of a polka family, kept the kingdom safe.
They’re gone now.
So Jolly Joe’s in charge.
Now he and his wife send their own young prince into the world with a mission to spread the polka news. As Jolly Joe says - polka people are happy people. And, truly, they are.
That’s why I bringing him a present for the reception.
I’m bringing a CD hot off the presses so I can once again take to the floor the way I did at Laceys.
I’m ready this time.
I’ve had more than 20 years to practice, which I’ve done most recently in the kitchen of my Scranton house with my partner, Stephanie, who also tries to lead. Together, we’re a team.
Besides, I owe Joe.
If not for him, my new hit song “Let’s Name the Baby Kielbasa” would have never been made. So what if he passed when I suggested the number 20 years ago and actually wrote a whole notebook page full of lyrics. The idea sprouted after meeting him, hearing his band “The Bavarians,” and dancing the polka at Laceys.
We’ve been playing the tune every Friday – Polka Friday – on my show on WILK News Radio. All ages have welcomed this rousing record. One good listen is enough to get your attention.
It’s only a matter of time before I get invited to Atlantic City to perform in some under the boardwalk emporium.
Kenny Brophy will be there. Without his polka know-how and technical genius, we wouldn’t have a song either. Retired music teacher Rudy Steckel, who provided a verse that I tuned up and sing on the record, might even show up.
If somebody videos the scene when we play it at Saturday’s wedding reception, I’ll post the chaos on the WILK News Radio website. Maybe somebody will throw kielbasa. We’ll make “Dancing with the Stars” look like “The Return of the Mummy.”
We’ll also have another gold mine production to market.
Voila!
Hoopa!
Instant music video.
YouTube here we come.
I’ll be more famous than cranky Nanticoke Congressman Paul Kanjorski, whose YouTube antics might help lose him the November election - unless, of course, he wises up and gets out his dancing shoes.
In 1988, I spotted Kanjorski dancing the jitterbug in an Atlanta, Ga. hotel during the Democratic National Convention. That man can spin. And dancing the “Kielbasa” will help him in the working-class enclaves of his hometown.
So I’ll do the best I can to spread the news so they’ll be doing the “Kielbasa” at the Olympics, the Vatican and in Buckingham Palace.
So long Twist.
Forget about the Locomotion.
Everybody do the “Kielbasa.”
Jolly Joe created a monster – me, not his kid.
|
Corbett
E-Mail
Print
