In one of my Lazy Allen stories, My Dog’s Bigger than your Dog, I mentioned the Clown Prince of Polka, Walter Solek. In the story, the narrator, Lazy Allen, tells his buddy Staashu about the day he played poker with Walt Solek at a stag party. I thought I’d take a minute to post something about Walt Solek to supplement the story.

Mr. Solek was born in September 1910 and passed at age 94 in April 2005. Polka fans are familier with Blondie Polka, the Julida Polka, the Pierogi Polka, Who Stole the Kishka and many more. Solek was a showman who mixed music and comedy.

I found some footage on the YouTube machine featuring Mr. Solek performing live, singing Blondie Polka in both Polish and English.

Speaking of The Lazy Allen Stories, I took a quick look at the stats for that site today and discovered that all today’s visitors came from Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, The Phillipines, and Mozambique. That alone is a great reason to love the internet. My stories don’t get loads of visitors but I love the idea that they are being enjoyed in countries I’ve never even visited.