Information About My New Blog Cocojams2

Subject: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 11:46 AM

Greetings!

I'm writing to let folks here know that my cocojams.com cultural website that was online since December 2001 vanished late October 2014 [!?!) as did the internet hosting company. I am partially recreating its playground rhymes pages from back-up files and from recent internet "rhyme harvesting" on a Google blog that I've named cocojams2.

Here's a link to that blog http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/.

Cocojams.com contained a number of other folk categories besides playground rhymes. I intend to publish a few of those pages on pancocojams, another Google blog site that I've had since 2011. Or at least I'll continue posting examples from that material on that blog post (such as video examples and the lyrics of civil rights songs, early Jazz songs, stomp and shake cheerleader cheers, Jamaican Mentos, military cadences, Gospel songs, historically Black fraternity and sorority chants, and more.

I look forward to you visiting cocojams2 and pancocojams!

Best wishes!

Azizi

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 11:51 AM

Here's an excerpt of my latest cocojams2 blog post http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-biscuit-phrase-in-playground-rhymes.html "A Biscuit" Phrase In Playground Rhymes (Examples & Its Possible Source)

"A number of playground rhymes include the refrain "a biscuit" or a folk processed form of those words. As a result of my curiousity about the source of that "a biscuit" phrase in those playground rhymes, I've come up with the theory that the "a biscuit" refrain is a folk processed form of the words "a trisket". The words "a trisket" words were popularized by the Jazz song "A Trisket A Tasket". That said, from the rhyme examples that I've found, it appears that the "a biscuit" refrain wasn't included in "Down Down Baby" and other rhymes until the 1970s. And rhyme examples that mention "Ronald McDonald" couldn't have been created before 1963 when that McDonald's mascot was first created. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_McDonald.

I'd love to know if anyone remembers chanting a rhyme with "a biscuit" used as a refrain prior to the 1970s.

My guess is that when they are used as a refrain, the words "a biscuit" may not have originally had anything to do with the food named "biscuit". That said, in some "a biscuit" refrain rhymes those words appear to refer an actual "biscuit"- for instance in some examples of those rhymes the lines go: "I have a boyfriend/a biscuit/He is as sweet as/a biscuit".
-end of quote-
Notice that the example given below omits the word "as":

"I've got a boyfriend, a biscuit/ He's so-oo sweet, a biscuit".
-snip-
That cocojams2 post contains fifteeen examples of "a biscuit" refrain rhymes. Here's a rhyme example that I didn't include in that post:

"I can only remember the down down baby one, our version went like this

Ronald McDonald, ooh ahh a biscuit
Ronald McDonlad, ooh ahh a biscuit
A-shishi-wa-wa, a biscuit
I've got a boyfriend, a biscuit
He's so-oo sweet, a biscuit

Sweeter than an ice-cream, cherry on top
Sweeter than an ice-cream, cherry on top

Down down baby, down down the rollercoaster
Sweet sweet baby, I'll never let you go

Shimmy shimmy cocopop, shimmy shimmy wow!
Shimmy shimmy cocopop, shimmy shimmy pow!

I can't believe that I remember all that!!"
-mal'occhio http://www.essentialkids.com.au/forums/index.php?/topic/845958-hand-clapping-games/ "Hand clapping games", Posted 18 November 2010
-snip-
...By the way, what's the earliest documented date for any "Down Down Baby" ("Shimmy Shimmy Co Co Pa") playground rhyme? "Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop" by Little Anthony and the Imperials was recorded in 1960. But that rhyme doesn't have anything to do with being "down by the roller coaster" or having a boyfriend (or a girlfriend) who was sweet "like a cherry treat" or "as a biscuit"). Were there "Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pa" (or similarly spelled) rhymes before 1960?"

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 12:25 PM

Is the African names database entirely gone?

~S~

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 12:44 PM

Hi, W y s i w y G .

I have back-up files for the Names & Nicknames file and for the chapter of what I believe is an unpublished book on Yoruba (Nigeria) namds by Fela Sowande.

I plan to publish that Yoruba name chapter on pancocojams soon. I'll add that link to this Mudcat thread when I've publsh.

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 04:01 PM

I'm glad to hear it. I was looking up a name recently and disappointed your site wasn't findable.

~S~

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 04:01 PM

Here's a link to the pancocojams post that contains the complete xhapter on Yoruba names: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/11/yoruba-names-and-their-meeanings-by.html

That chapter is from Fela Sowande's 1966 book The Mind Of A Nation- The Yoruba Child (Ibadan: Ibadan University). Dr. Sowande (b. Abeokuta, Nigeria, May 1905; d. Ravenna, Ohio, United States, 13 March 1987) was a Nigerian musician, composer, and scholar.

I believe that book is un-published. If it is published, it certainly is difficult to find.

All copyrights remain with their owner.

My thanks to Dr. Fela Sowande for his cultural legacy.

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 04:53 PM

cocojams.com was last backed up on archive.org on May 28 this year:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://cocojams.com

So, everything from before that should be findable, albeit not easily (archive.org does a great job but the process can't be simplified a lot).

Hosts that go down the toilet without backing up content as valuable as that should never have got into the hosting business in the first place.

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 12:20 PM

Hello, Jack.

Thanks for that information about that archiving site. I visited it and retrieved a few files that I didn't have.

I very much agree with your last statement. I only had a few problems with that small local hosting company before this, and those problems were easily fixed. However, this time I've not been able to reach anyone at that hosting company by email or by telephone and their site is also down.

I intend to re-publish selected pages of the material that was on cocojams.com on cocojams2 or on pancocojams. Both are Google blogs so hopefully, they'll be around for a while. While I'm re-publishng material (particularly for the playground rhymes files), I'm correcting my own spelling errors (as you can see, I still have that tendency to make typos :o). I also can't resist the urge to surf the internet to harvest other rhyme examples.

Thanks again for your support!

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 02:27 PM

Congrats, Azizi! So nice to see that you're going strong -

Subject: RE: Information About My New Blog Cocojams2
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Nov 14 - 06:39 AM

Thanks, Bonnie for your comment!

Update- I've been periodically checking the link for cocojams.com, and this morning I found that that website is back up.

But I still haven't heard from anyone at that internet hosting company, and I no longer have any confidence in that firm.
And so I'm going to continue publishing selected pages on my new cocojams2 blog that is hosted by Google. I've updated and cleaned up content in those pages and the only major change from cocojams is that there are less videos.

To date, in addition to pages on hand clap & jump rope rhymes & a "focus on" post that showcases examples of playground rhymes that include the phrase "a biscuit", (as well as the page on Yoruba names (that I reposted from back up files onto my pancocojams blog), I've also published a post on cocojams2 on examples of African American children's taunting rhymes.


Furthermore, I've published the following "focus on" posts that (as is also true of the previously mentioned "focus on" cocojams2 post) weren't on my old cocojams website. Links to those posts are:

http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/soul-sister-number-9-in-childrens.html "Soul Sister Number 9" In Children's Playground Rhymes"

http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/switching-places-ring-games-part-1.html "Switching Places Ring Games (Part 1-Description & Other Comments)"

and

http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/little-sally-walker-ride-that-pony_9.html
"Little Sally Walker & Ride That Pony (Switching Places Games, Part 2)"


Thanks to Mudcat for supporting my folkloric efforts.

Best wishes,

Azizi Powell