Can anyone explain Tom Lehrer's Stanleyville reference?

And the questioning tone he uses for Reagan’s name
to <pause> Ronald Reagan?
is quite ironic today.

Look here – kid – I was already finished with college by then. And no, you can’t date me, except with radiocarbons.

And I keep confusing Patrice Lamumba with Patrice Munsel. Not even close.

from what i’ve heard tom lehrer is a bitter old 85 year old man living in a tenemant in san fran, he is a recluse, hasn’t done an interview in decades and shuns the world now…see what tv can do to you

Tom Lehrer lives half the year in Santa Cruz, California and the other half in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He doesn’t live in a basement. He’s 86, not 85. He’s in the phone book and not a recluse:

http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer

Suicide, do some research before you post.

I noticed you didn’t deny the 'bitter" part. :smiley:
And Suicide was right about his age, your article is from 2013. The rest of the post, not so much.

Wow, what was that like?

My father lived in Nigeria for a year during the Biafran War, but he wasn’t particularly close to the front lines.

From this article Looking For Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius I conclude that Lehrer isn’t bitter, he definitely does not want to be in the limelight. And that Lehrer does not care an iota what you or I or anyone else thinks. Good for him!

Suicide is wrong about his age now. Lehrer is 86, not 85. I didn’t mention the word “bitter” because I think it’s too easily thrown around. Lehrer is and has always been realistic about what the world is like. I wouldn’t call that bitter.

Leopoldville wasn’t close to the front lines either, though the first place we lived, while trying to get squatters out of our villa, was across the street from a Congolese Army encampment. The government did not see fit to supply them with water, so they came to our place - we were in an apartment in a construction compound. When the company turned off the water, the wives of the soldiers lines up at the four apartments to get some.

When my father was in the hospital there was a wounded mercenary in a room also, under armed guard.

After he wrote his famous songs he wrote songs for The Electric Company which are hardly the work of a bitter man. Neither is Chanukah in Santa Monica.
There was a profile of him in a book which contained chapters on the new comedians of the '50s and '60s.

there was a story in the sf paper a few years ago about lehrer and they went to his home and he was all angry and bitter and didn’t want to be interviewed…that’s all i know…:(:(:frowning:

None of these are the article you’re talking about, I assume, but they’re in San Francisco newspapers:

http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-04-19/news/that-was-the-wit-that-was/full/

http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/That-Was-The-Tom-That-Was-Satirist-Lehrer-Sort-2771631.php

It appears that during the part of the year that he lives in Santa Cruz, he lives in a house by the beach.

There’s also a Stan Freberg routine from about the same era. It’s a parody of the old Batman TV series with Reagan and his press agent, Flackman, planning Reagan’s run for governor in '66. It ends with him making a reference to someday being president.

does south africa still need two bombs?

When is National Brotherhood Week happening this year?

craziest thing about that album is that many of the issues he sung about are still issues today: nuclear proliferation, pollution, state of education, race, and of course his famous line ‘everybody hates the ----’

In the 70s the reason he lived half the year in Santa Cruz was he was a visiting professor there. I regret I did not take his Musical Comedy class when I had the chance - I was intimidated then, but upon reflection, my voice was at least as good as his was!

Tom Lehrer taught part-time at UC Santa Cruz from 1972 to 2001. I would presume that his title during those years was not visiting professor (which implies that someone is at a university only a short time) but adjunct professor (which implies that someone is at a university for a long time but never a full-time tenure-track professor). I’ve just done a search and some websites refer to him as an adjunct professor. In any case, it appears that he wanted to spend half the year in Santa Cruz and half the year in Cambridge.

Hell, the stuff he wrote when he was a student, on the first album, is still funny and pretty advanced today.
And you forgot that the new Pope is clearly doing the Vatican Rag.

I didn’t know he still lived around Cambridge. I’ve seen pictures but I don’t know if I’d recognize him if we just passed on the street. I wonder how often people recognize him from his voice, though, like when he’s ordering coffee or something.