Thursday, February 10, 2011

In Which I Sing for a Job

You might be wondering (if you manage any curiosity remaining after grad school) how I managed to get into this situation.  No, you're right: I haven't shown any singing talent, even in the light of the low standards that prevail currently.

Let me explain . . . .

I was a new almost-Ph.D.  And we know what Ph.D. stands for.  Anyway, I was at the Jung Hotel in New Orleans at the SEPA convention, doing job interviews.  And with such amazing places:  Sour Briar College, Northern Kentucky Beauty College and University, Sam Houston Institute of Technology, and so forth and so on.

In the evening, there were the impromptu parties, including the notorious and fabled bimbo party and the champagne breakfast at dawn: possibly more legend than fact.  Possibly the times have led academics to greater discretion nowadays than when I first went to SEPA; I don't know.  But back in 1969, things were loose away from the home campus!

Several of my compadres were halfway in the bag; as a matter of fact, some of the faculty were too!  Good times . . . .

Anyway, I was at a party for Psych Department for a major institution in North Carolina, and I was accosted by a middle-aged man who introduced me as the Department Chair, and he asked me whether I was job-seeking.

I felt that at last I had a connection; and would be a junior faculty member at a Ph.D.-granting institution.  Not bad for a Frenchie from New Orleans! 

Just then, one of his department members came up, and wanted to get him to sing.  He says, "Sure, if my good buddy Ed here and these two guys over here will be the chorus."

And so we did. 

The song was "Little Red Riding Hood," originally cut by Sam the Sham and The Pharoahs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBQciVXVmcE

The Department Chair claimed the wolf howls as his own.