In 1972 there was a lot of excellent hashish in the neighborhood. Into that haze stepped the most tripped-out performer I've ever seen, a guy named Uncle Vinty. Vinton Medbury was a Rhode Island native who took his show on the road in an old bread van before settling down for a while in southeast Wisconsin.
Vinty was quite an image when he stepped on the stage, a one-man act clad in a satin court jester's outfit with a horned viking helmet, wild hair and flowing beard. He presented himself in a very hallucinogenic manner, as if he knew his audience was stoned. His signature line was, "I'm Uncle Vinty -- and you're Uncle Vinty ... too!" (holds up two fingers)
Back then he had a repertoire of what seemed like slightly twisted children's songs that invoked hilarity in me and my friends. More than a half century later, they remain a fond but elusive memory -- until this week, when I discovered them on YouTube with approximately five views each.
"Uncle Vinty's Family Album" includes a ballad about some noodle dough and a poodle, slightly sanitized for the recording (in the original, the poodle took a piddle in the middle of the noodle dough).
Vinty eventually moved to the West Coast, where he became caught up in the AIDS epidemic and died in 1994. But his music lives on YouTube.