Cupid's ukulele: Singing telegram's upgrade
Bella Vista man reviving the singing telegram tradition in new and old ways.
A MODERN-DAY Cupid is strumming love, maybe something less serious, on his ukulele, and the song is slipping out an open door in a Center City apartment to flirt with the snow flurries, just before Valentine's Day.
Eric Jaffe's beard is painted as red as the heart-shape boxes all those chocolates come in. The shirt beneath his sequined vest is a shade brighter than the roses being primped in vases across the country. He's singing into a MacBook, yes, but it's just a small technological tweak on a time-honored tradition, a unique way to say "I like you" or something more serious on the holiday that seems to demand it.
Jaffe, 26, is filming a singing telegram to send out to customers and their crushes on Sunday morning via email or a YouTube link.
You've probably heard the song.
"Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me maybe," Jaffe sings, his voice far deeper than pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen's. "It's hard to look right at you, baby, but here's my number, so call me maybe."
The Bella Vista resident sings the tune a few more times, because he thinks he didn't hit the right notes. Each one begins with a customized greeting for the recipient and ends with an upbeat "Happy Valentine's Day." He's filming a dozen altogether for $25 apiece, and he's doing about four live performances Sunday too, including one in Rittenhouse Square.
"When I was a kid, my dream was to be a wandering minstrel, to be able to travel places and just play music," he says.
Jaffe studied theater and acting at Florida Atlantic University and began his pop-up songs there in the cafeteria or in friends' dorm rooms, always putting a campy, upbeat twist on the tunes. He performs The Eric Jaffe Show! on the third Friday of every month at Tavern on Camac, and wouldn't mind making more money brightening people's days with music.
"It can be really romantic, really funny," he says. "I've had tears once when a guy asked a girl out."
Courting that special someone with song is ancient. It's not just human nature. Birds do it in the trees all spring, and whales might be bellowing their longing down below at this very moment. The first official "singing telegram" between people, though, was sent on July 28, 1933.
According to the New York Times, George P. Oslin, a Western Union executive, had an employee named Lucille Lipps, seriously, sing to vocalist Rudy Vallee for his birthday. Oslin, according to his obituary, said the telegrams made Western Union "millions," and he took pride that his idea "started America on a zany musical binge."
The lesser-known "kissogram" may have run its course because, frankly, it's kind of creepy and there's all sorts of consent issues. The "stripogram" is still a thing, too, but it's often a sordid affair that involves bodyguards instead of Cupids.
Singing telegrams are still fun and sweet 83 years later, Jaffe says, and they rub off on everyone who experiences them live. Sometimes, Jaffe is asked to come to expensive restaurants by his customers for a table-side serenade and the waitstaff isn't so thrilled. They wouldn't dare kick him out, though.
"The energy when you do it live, in front of a crowd, is amazing," Jaffe says.
Surprisingly, Jaffe says he's never done the same song twice, and they're not always love songs. Some people want songs with names in them, he says, like "Anna" by the Beatles or the Rollings Stones' "Angie," downer lyrics be damned.
This year, Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" has been the challenge. Jaffe accepts it, though, because he knows he's often the answer to that challenging quest for originality or something close to it on Valentine's Day.
"It's not a real holiday, in the sense that you should be showing your partner love every single day of the year," he says. "At the same time, though, there's a lot of pressure to do something great, you know, something better than candy and roses and jewelry."
215-854-5916 On Twitter: @JasonNark