Better Late Than Never

The Democratic Convention starts on Monday in Chicago, and this story popped into mind, that made it seem oddly timely.  I know it won't appear that way at first, but bear with me.  It requires some background which might seem to make no sense, no matter how unlikely.

Northwestern University has an annual student-produced revue that began life as a written sketch show, but has morphed into a very popular, successful improv-based production, the Mee-Ow Show. (It started out as a barebones alternative to the big, famous, meticulously-produced Waa-Mu Show that's coming on its 94th year.  While student written, there is faculty involvement.  And a sort of hierarchy structure.) 

The Mee-Ow Show, though, did catch on, and it just had its 50th anniversary a couple months ago, and there was a big reunion.  Among the show's alumni that I'm aware of are Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Seth Meyers, Craig Bierko (who starred on Broadway as 'Harold Hill' in a revival of The Music Man), Dermot Mulroney, Josh Meyers, Kristen Schaal, and SNL's Ana Gasteyer, Brad Hall and Gary Kroeger.  (Well, also, the Lady Shellington, who I've oft-mentioned here, Shelly Goldstein.)  Stephen Colbert has said he auditioned for the show, but wasn't cast.  Man, the competition must have been tough that year, or the producers fools. 

I mention all this because I wrote for the very first Mee-Ow Show.  Not sketches, though -- rather, I wrote the music and lyrics to two songs.  One was called "Ma Bell," a sweet ode to the kindly, endearing lady who wanted to involve herself into every aspect of your life for the good of America.  However, I insisted they drop the other song.  What happened is that I went to a rehearsal near opening night, and discovered that they had cut the middle out of the song, and the number now made no sense.  (Their explanation was that the show was running long.  "So, you cut out 30-seconds from a song??"  I noted that the sketch that preceded it ran over 12 minutes.  "You couldn't find something to cut there?"  But no, the producer wouldn’t put the missing 30-seconds back it in, though he gave me a choice – leave the mangled song as is, or if I was unhappy, they’d take it out.  Since my name would be in the program as having written this now-jumble of a song, and I knew that writing was my intended profession, I told them to take it out.

(The concept of deletion apparently lingers on.  The website for the 50th reunion has a page listing everyone who participated in every production.  Well, almost everyone.  I can't speak for others, but I wasn't listed among them.  There is a Facebook Group page for the reunion, and I politely mentioned the omission there, and fortunately still had the original program to attach a copy as proof.  I was added back in, and the fellow writing a book on the history of the show, to be published later this year, said it's now been updated, as well.  O huzzah!

Which gets us the point.  That first Mee-Ow Show was done in 1974. In the news at the time, both political parties were trying to decide where to hold their next convention in two years.  As I'm sure most people know, Northwestern is in Evanston, which borders Chicago to the north.  So, the song I wrote was a look back at the previous convention, the first after the 1968 debacle in the city with what was later called in the official study a "police riot," and the number suggested how a group of civic leaders had tried (to no avail) to get either party to bring their convention back to the city, which had hosted so many political conventions throughout U.S. history and give it another chance, called “Why Not Chicago?” 

See!  I told you there was a connection!

Needless-to-say, with the news tomorrow and Chicago finally getting a political convention again -- after 56 years, and especially a Democratic one -- the old song came to my mind.  I went through my files and actually found the lyrics.  I recall that the music was very chipper and upbeat, somewhat of a “soft shoe” number. 

(By the way, on that Facebook Group page, when I mentioned something about the two songs, to my surprise some fellow responded that he had been one of those rehearsing this one.  I apologized to him after all these years for cutting his number…  Happily, he was okay with it.) 

So, 50 years in the making, here finally is the first public appearance of at least the lyrics of the song, "Why Not Chicago?"!!
 
Why not Chicago?
What’s the matter with us?
We are friendly
And we’re cheerful.
Why are both of the parties so fearful
To go meet in Chicago?
Do we deserve all this hate?
We promise to run the convention
Like we handled it in ’68.
 
Why not Chicago?
Tell us what we did wrong.
We had total
Peace and quiet.
Well, except for one small, minor riot.
So, what’s  wrong with Chicago?
We promise that we’ll do our best
To help all the people who like us,
And then go out and beat up the rest.
 
What is the dreadful disease we’ve contracted?
What have we done to instill all this fear?
Just because some of us over-reacted
Please, can’t we have a convention this year?

So, why not Chicago?
Give Mayor Daley a chance.
He is honest
And respected,
Just make sure that his man gets elected.
Oh, give us a convention
To show off the things we can do.
If you like how we handled the last one,
Just you watch us in ’72.
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