The Llama Sings and Confuses Older Folks

Last night and this morning my a cappella group at the law school, Six Angry Men, performed for ten of the eleven alumni classes having reunions at the law school. We just did two numbers—"Coney Island Baby" and a medley of "Twist and Shout" and "La Bamba"—but it was a lot of fun. And educational too: we quickly learned that certain classes would respond differently to the same joke depending on their graduation year.

This was easiest to see in Coney Island Baby, where we always have one person say something—typically a pickup line—after the verse “We all fall for / some girl that dresses neat / some girl that’s got big feet / we meet her on the street…” At first, we had Rich blurt out “Nice shoes!” (The first half of the old standard, “Nice shoes, wanna [have some tea]?”) It was a bit of a disappointment when the Class of 1991 did not appreciate—or appear to understand—the comedic significance here. So at our next stop, the Class of 1976, we decided to take the gloves off and have Rich switch to the more obvious “You’re not a cop, are you?” Judging by the fact that not a single person laughed, this, too, was not ideal. Eventually we opted for the family-friendly “Did I mention I go to law school?” This, to our dismay, was pure gold.

When we reached the oldest class, however—the Class of 1956—we realized that our audience was facing a different problem: the utter inability to understand what is going on. The first sign came in between our two songs, when Rich was explaining that we wished we could stick around but that we had to go to other classes... plus we only knew two songs. About thirty seconds after the laughter died down, pretty much in some dead space, a certain gentleman of a certain age shot his glass up in the air and yelled “Bon soir!” Like with real gusto.

(In case you are wondering if this was, in fact, appropriate, I can assure you that (A) no one else was toasting, (B) or speaking French, and (C) it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Okay, I’m lying about the 3 o’clock part, but you have to admit this was incomprehensible.)

The second sign came when, after I finished singing La Bamba—which I sing in Spanish—Senator Arlen Specter ’56 approached me and asked me where I got my “excellent Caribbean rhythm.” Then he asked Dan who his "barber" was. Then he explained that when he was in law school, he was part of a men's singing group called "the Oversextette." Then he offered all of us jobs on the Judiciary Committee. He was pretty much all over the place.