the feast of st. nicolas day is generally celebrated on december 6th. when i was growing up, we would get candy in our shoes, if we were good. this wasn't celebrated every year, and after some years, not at all. but now i that i think about it, it was my grandmother who got us to start the tradition. she was staying with my mom for a while after my brother joe was born, and i was in kindergarten. we put our shoes in the hall by the bedrooms, and the next morning we each had a tin with candy tucked under the tongue. we were lucky to have been good, otherwise black peter would have brought us coal and straw.
this year marks the second year we've celebrated it with our kids. last year my brother jon gave abi a set of the chronicles of narnia, which we read to her over the course of this last year. today, i gave abi and sam the johnny cash children's album. the song 'nasty dan' really cracked them up.
yesterday, i got a new cd from my club. a tribute to the 70s power pop band Big Star. it was an impulse purchase on the strength of my curiosity about the advertised Wilco cover of "Thirteen." The track was quite good. I heard it, while driving back from Valpo and practiing with Troy. No heat in the gold van. My toes were frozen. But it made me think of warmer weather...
back in this summer, i played a cover of "thirteen" more to the stylings of elliot smith's version, which i first heard on a mix cd of smith rarities that lizzy martin made for me in '05. fast forward to summer 06, i heard it on the soundtrack during the movie "thumbsucker," recomeded to me by shannon. a few days later, i was asked by my friends the dimestore millionaires, to play with them at the strike zone, a bowling alley in rennselaer.
it was my first day working at the porter county fair. i got off at 7 and drove as fast as i could down 49. i changed into my stage wear at the gas station bathroom at kouts, cos i know i have to play at 8, it takes 50 minutes from valpo to renns. anyway here's the wardrobe:
the house was packed. the dimestores brought a lot of folks and so did g'd livid penny. both of their sets were very fun. i had fun meeting their friends and hanging out with them. there was also a teen set emo band that started everything off and all their fans. i actually ran into two of my former guitar students. they both said they liked my set. they told their friends, 'this is the guy who taught me how to play guitar.' it felt great. i went back to buy something to drink and the owner of the bowling alley said, "i like your songs, the beer's on the house." i felt on top of the world. justin, graham's bass player, brought some of his co-workers. one of them, maria, was very friendly to me, she kept calling me 'major thom' a la david bowie. i tried to get people to dance at the end of grahm's set, but there were no takers. le sigh. after load out, the dimestores asked me a lot of questions about being in a band, and life, and getting older and god it was a good parking lot convo. i called shann on the way home and told her i played "thirteen" and i think my adrenaline high both frightened and amused her. but it was a highlight for my summer, i was riding high. i was unaware of it, but looking i think it was a small era, the summer of '06. i had a lot of growing experiences, memories, and such, and it's probably not going to be repeated.
but as a result of that performance, i kept on playing 'thirteen' at different open mics throughout the year.
as i wrote this, elizabeth and i just watched "planes and trains and automobiles." the first time i saw that was with jon and betsy and dad in like 1990 or something, on broadcast TV. We loved it, I mean we were rolling on the floor. Some of my happiest family memories growing up were watching comdedies with the family and popcorn in the big metal mixing bowl and collanger, the little kids running around in the back ground. my dad would lean back in the rocking chair and put his feet up on the TV table and put one of the popcorn bowls on his lap. he would laugh real loud. we would have to sit on either side.
jon and besty took many of the lines from the film and used it as their "power quotes." One favorite was "I've got two dollars and a casio." Or "I could sit through insurance seminars with a smile on my face, people will ask me how I can stand it, cos I've been with Del Griffith.
When I was a teenager and getting into Christian alternative rock, I found a tape in the clearance bin of the family book store called "The Del Griffiths." I bought it for $2 or something. It was power-pop with a very humorous bent. I learned later that it was side project of normally serious band, only now I can't remember which. There were songs like "I like me." or "Annakin"(about star wars) or "My bike" (my personal favorite- a loving ode to the guy's bicycle) When I was in college, my friend Erin told me she loved the Del Griffiths on a string quartet trip. I was floored. I thought they were so obscure that no one knew who they were. But I was okay with it, it brought Erin and I closer together. And so, I learned that movies, music, and friendship can be inextricably connected.
meke leke hi meke heinie ho!