Judge — July 5, 1930 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE oTHE GEORGE J eruaps the worst show visible P: what is known to Deity-dero- ting clergymen as God's earth is the institution called a ship's con- cert. This, of course, is superfluous news to anyone who has ever been on a ship, been hornswoggled away from the bar by a persistent female and been forced to attend one of the things. Any such poor dog is suffi- ciently of th » of these established nuisances, t is, unless he has exercised the ation, be- fore succumbing to the aforemen- tioned female's wiles, quickly to throw down at t half a dozen whiskeys, three or four gin rickeys and maybe eight or so Stingers. A ship's concert is a left-handed form of propaganda practised by American summer-resort operators to keep Americans at home. For all the reports to the contrary, the present falling-off in European travel is due much less to the recent stock market ash and the swindles indulged in by French hotel keepers and tradesmen than to ships’ concerts. After being compelled to listen to two or three such entertainments, as th cuphemistically termed, Ameri- cans couldn't be d from Asbury Park or Niaga Falls by horses. You m: : ths at it ought to be a simple matter for anyone on board ship to avoid going to one of the concerts if he had the will to, but you be wrong. There are only two ways to avoid going. One is to come down with a contagious disease s out and be quarantined in s stateroom and the other is to jump overboard. Anyone who doesn’t do one or the other will find himself at the whether he wants to find himself at the concert or not. About five hours before a ship’s concert apparently everybody on the ship, with the possible exception of the two professional card-sharks and three or four stews in the constitutes himself a of one to get you to go to and the more you decline ware pre are most concert -room, committe the concert, O the honor the more the committee of one, gradually amplified by various lieutenants, sees to it that you are going to be honored willy-nilly. If you scem to be holding out with any promise of success, a cutie is dug up out of the palm garden and hurried up to the front as artille And any who has ever resisted the cutie—usually a saucy bundle from Chicago—deserves to be made director-general of the line on the spot. One ship's concert, wherever you find it, is as much like another as two railroad table d’héte dinners. First, there is the master of ceremonies. The master of ceremonies is usually some bald-headed idiot for the three days previous to the concert, has been rushing decks tuck- ing the women’s blankets under them, unwelcom for a walk, putting on a paper hat in the dining saloon, announcing that the looking girl but recently observed must have just got on the ship, and otherwise serving as what is known as the life of the party. This dismal jackass gets up on the platform, puts on a broad greasy grin, cracks a couple of feeble jokes, momentarily wipes the grin off his fac stituting his idea of a g it, informs the crowd that the concert is for the benefit of those worthy and deserving institutions, the American Seamen's Home, the Liverpool Refuge for Sailors’ Orphans and the Staten Island Ferry Bootblacks’ Old Men's Home, and then, going in for what he imagines to be a jolly imitation of Guinan, announces that the first number on the program will be Miss Minnie Laushaus, of St. Paul, and for everybody to give Minnie a great big hand. Miss Laushaus, AVY man who, around the ining you good- and, sub- ¢ look for who is making her first trip over and hence fallen for the invitation to perform, sits down at the piano and does something pretty awful to either Grieg. after which she beamingly to the applause of the Chopin or bows der rises, 16 ACRE: NATHAN and more sedate married women and trips over her skirt in getting off the platform. The next number is the Roscoe Rosenberg Harvardians, a jazz band consisting of eight Chinese aurant virtuosi drafted from the cond class. If the Roscoe berg Harvardians don't | on board, there are alway: Musical Vespuceis who drafted from the steerage. The Ros- coe Rosenberg Harvardians, assuming it is they who are dredged up from the lower deck, proceed now to manu- facture some particularly bad jazz the badness of wh with individual Rosen- ppen to be the Four may be monkey: “Oh, boy!” when the saxophone player negotiates ticularly long moan or exe: few clog steps when the drummer in- dulges himself in a fancy solo. Fol- lowing the Roscoe Rosenberg Har- vardians we have Mr. J. Lawrence Vish, president of the Board of Alder- men of Eric, Pa., or his equivalent. Mr. Fish, who has a belly, is very important and regards himself, by virtue of his exalted position, as the particlar pet of the hea steward, addresses the the glorious future of the United States and requests all Rotarians on board to meet the next afternoon at three o'clock in lounge. It is now time for the of the big headliner. The big head- liner is always some professional actor or actress who hasn't been able to land a job for several years and who is so homesick for the limelight that even standing in front of a taxic lamps would be a big kick. Th is generally an inferior comedian who has they opened the bar and who is headed for some mythical job in a poedon revue, and the actress is gen- a small-time vaudeville blues ror a radio coloratura who has n observed on ‘late at night on the boat deck with the as. sistant purser. With a manner that (Continued on page 27) s shouting appearance b's actor music show been boiled since comicbooks.com