24 days.......

24 days.
Time has completely flown by.
Little Johnny Jones is in full swing.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
So I'm only slightly mad...
ha.
I've decided to start a blog for the whole Treasure Island process.
I'm going to tell the kids and parents so they can follow along and enjoy....
AND it could be a little relief for me....
Therapy...
Something every half-crazed thespian needs...
OH, the scripts will be here this week.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
I feel so psyched and giddy everytime I think about it.
Man, it is going to roooooooock.
lol
I am so OVERLY animated about this show.

Oh, an update on my CLUE search....
My fabulous friend John gave me a contact number for someone within the walls of the Paramount people...
Yep...
PARAMOUNT.
After talking to a couple different guys, I was connected with a gent in their Licensing Department.
I left a message, so, hopefully, he'll call me back and give me good news...
I hope.


Yo Ho Ho
From a 1901 Broadway musical
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Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike
The bosun brained with a marlinspike
And cookey's throat was marked belike
It had been gripped by fingers ten;
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o'day in a boozing ken
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of the whole ship's list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore
And the scullion he was stabbed times four
And there they lay, and the soggy skies
Dripped down in up-staring eyes
In murk sunset and foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the murder mark!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers' glut with a rotting red
And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes
Looking up at paradise
All souls bound just contrawise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of 'em good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ev'ry man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
There was chest on chest of Spanish gold
With a ton of plate in the middle hold
And the cabins riot of stuff untold,
And they lay there that took the plum
With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb
While we shared all by the rule of thumb,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

More was seen through a sternlight screen...
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Chartings undoubt where a woman had been
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
'Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot
With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot
Oh was she wench or some shudderin' maid
That dared the knife and took the blade
By God! she had stuff for a plucky jade
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight
And we heaved 'em over and out of sight,
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!


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From: Patty and Skip Hendersonchanteyman@email.msn.com

Information for your sailor's song collection; Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest was a poem written by Young E. Allison who was a contemporary of Robert. Louis Stevenson describing the fate of the crew on a ship wrecked on the infamous Dead Man's Chest, a reef close to the island of Tortola in the eastern Caribbean, east of Puerto Rico, in the British Virgin Islands. The title of the poem is Derelict. Allison used the lines from Stevenson's Treasure Island story to retell the folk legend. The tune was used by several professional musical organizations recording an approximate melody, most notably the Roger Wagner Chorale on a cassette tape called SEA CHANTIES(RW 029-C). The most accurate tune from the early San Francisco shanty days was performed by A.L.Ekstrom of Sausalito,CA. and was rewritten by Skip Henderson (myself) in 1964. I perform, research, and annotate english language sea chanties and maritime music as a hobby and work with the National Maritime Historic Park Service, as a volunteer, at Hyde St. Pier, in San Francisco. I have an extensive library of books and tapes and would be glad to aid in answering questions concerning this rather obscure folk music.

Skip Henderson