Entry Five: Caption
The photo posted. That is a picture of my son, Henry, onstage singing with the Polyphonic Spree. He's pictured with Tim DeLaughter, lead singer for and genius behind the Spree, which is the best band ever. Hear the story of how Henry came to be a guest singer with the band
That's a commentary I did for our local public radio station, KUT, in Austin, about Henry and Tim. The show I refer to happened in September at Stubb's BBQ. This past weekend, we drove up to Grand Prairie, which is between Dallas and Fort Worth, to see the Polyphonic Spree Christmas show. It was our third year to do this. Before I started attending the PSCS, I mostly hated Christmas. I typically suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and all the forced cheer of Christmas pulls that trigger a little harder. I have wept my way through more than one holiday season. No more. The Spree has reclaimed Christmas as their own. There shows feature entertainment for the whole family. This year they moved from the smaller Lakewood Theater in Dallas because the show outgrew the venue. The new venue, the Nokia Theater, is pretty hefty. In the lobby there was a moon bounce, a terrifying ventriloquist, a woman with a monkey, some oom-pa-pa music, a reindeer, an elf, Santa (I think Santa was there-- I am so allergic to that guy that I sort of block him out). Inside they had a variety of acts. The Syncopated Ladies are these elderly tap dancers who show a lot of leg. Corn Mo must be seen and heard-- can't describe him. There were animals from the zoo. And then... then...
Usually the Spree does two sets for the holiday show. This year they changed format a bit. Instead of just doing a set of Christmas carols they added an original play A Polyphonic Spree Carol (I think that was the name of it), written by the French horn player and based on a Christmas Carol. My friend Jason calls Louis, the French horn player, the Hugh Hefner of French horn players. Louis always has this serene smile on his face on stage. Surely he has more rabid and zealous fans than any other FH player. He is also an incredible writer and the play, which I expected to be funny but fluffy, in fact was hysterical with a great message added in. Tim wishes he'd never started the band. Then Santa Claus calls Tim, pretending to be God, and tells him he's going to see what happens if he gets his wish. Tim is visited by a very queeny holiday card representing Christmas past, a very electrifying dominatrix played by Audrey the flutist, a scary ghost of Christmas future who shows Tim that without the band the world will be entirely controlled by an entity known as Clear Station. Ultimately a wandering Jew and his donkey Ezekiel arrive to offer "conflict resolution" in the form of a parable about a shiny shovel. Tim realizes his errors, the band forms after all, and then they bust out the Christmas carols.
Even though I don't like to celebrate Christmas, even though I'm not a Christian, whenever those guys sing "Do You See What I See?" I get totally choked up. And even though I have globophobia, which is a severe fear of balloons (it's true), this is the one event where hundreds of balloons falling down from the ceiling don't terrify me. It did bug the crap out of me when the high school kids, whom I was squished up against at the front of the crowd, continually popped these balloons. I kept wanting to tell them I was a teacher and they were going to get an F for this behavior. But I just bit my tongue and waited. By this point it was between sets and I knew, from being at so many other shows, what would happen once the band returned. And I was right. As soon as they started singing the whole place simultaneously chilled out and freaked out. It is a bizarre phenomenon. Tim is genuinely charismatic, truly nice, and really cares about the audience. The band really likes their jobs. And the audience-- except for one young woman who kept smashing past me-- are downright polite.
After the show we hung out backstaqe for awhile. Henry and his friend Max-- they play their guitars together at clubs in Austin-- bagged a couple of older babes. The boys are fourteen. The girls claimed to be 16 and 17 and were very excited that we knew the band. So the four kids sat on a big leather couch while I sat and tried to be invisible in a corner. I made myself not drag them out of there after a half hour even though I was totally exhausted. I managed to finish knitting a fuzzy hat which I gave to Tim. (Julie liked it so much I am now making hats for their entire family.)
We got to the Motel 6 at 2 a.m. but everyone was hungry and so, despite my complete and total exhaustion, I took the kids to Denny's because, come on, what's a rockstar night without a greasy egg finale? It was the perfect Denny's experience with the waitress thoroughly confused when I ordered something that wasn't EXACTLY listed on the menu. We brought the scraps and a fresh side of bacon out to Bubbles who'd joined us on the road trip and was tired of being left alone in the car. The bacon went a long way toward earning her forgiveness.
At the motel, I left my keys in the car door. The phone rang a few hours later. The front desk had my keys. When we went out to the car to leave, there was a note on the windshield: "Your keys are at the front office. Reach for the sun." This was followed by a little happy face. The note made me cry. "Reach for the Sun" is a Spree song and clearly whoever left the note was also at the show. I'm telling you, listening to this band makes people nicer. Henry said next time we should leave the car running in the parking lot at the show and leave the doors unlocked. He's convinced we'll return to find the vehicle loaded down with gifts.
In other holiday news, I spent the day before the Spree show visiting Dripping Springs and Johnson City with my OUTSTANDING friend, Laura Freeman, who is also a musician. Laura should run wacky tours for a living. She took us to Jote's little quilting shop, Peacemakers, in Dripping. And then to Marianne's organic farm, Onion Creek farm, also in Dripping. And then she took us down the path to Joy. Joy is this woman who lives in a huge log cabin. She has a Christmas tree in every room. She also collects chickens-- live ones in the yard and then all sorts of chicken knick-knacks in her house. She must have a thousand chickens-- from cabinet handles to figurines to chicken hats and electronic chickens. (She also has a pepper grinder which uses SIX batteries. I loved that.) Joy and Laura were in a musical about quilting together back in '97. I'm writing a book about quilting and so they showed me a video of the musical. Joy seemed to remember it was 45 minutes. Actually I think it was closer to two hours and 45 minutes. Henry pulled me aside at one point and informed me that, to make this up to him, we would be spending the entire next day at the guitar store.
We did take a break in the movie to go and watch a live nativity at Joy's church. Joy's donkey, Taco, had a key role as an ass. The narration was provided by the booming voice of Perry Como pouring out of some huge speakers. I got choked up. I always get choked up at stuff like that. Poodles in tu-tus, baton twirlers, live nativities. More powerful than long distance phone commercials.
Anyway, so even though I don't like Christmas and even though I keep trying to ignore it, it did sneak up on me in a good way this year. And this week I'm in Houston with my friends who just had twin baby girls. I'm cooking for them. Cooking and reading and knitting and writing. A very good week indeed.
That's a commentary I did for our local public radio station, KUT, in Austin, about Henry and Tim. The show I refer to happened in September at Stubb's BBQ. This past weekend, we drove up to Grand Prairie, which is between Dallas and Fort Worth, to see the Polyphonic Spree Christmas show. It was our third year to do this. Before I started attending the PSCS, I mostly hated Christmas. I typically suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and all the forced cheer of Christmas pulls that trigger a little harder. I have wept my way through more than one holiday season. No more. The Spree has reclaimed Christmas as their own. There shows feature entertainment for the whole family. This year they moved from the smaller Lakewood Theater in Dallas because the show outgrew the venue. The new venue, the Nokia Theater, is pretty hefty. In the lobby there was a moon bounce, a terrifying ventriloquist, a woman with a monkey, some oom-pa-pa music, a reindeer, an elf, Santa (I think Santa was there-- I am so allergic to that guy that I sort of block him out). Inside they had a variety of acts. The Syncopated Ladies are these elderly tap dancers who show a lot of leg. Corn Mo must be seen and heard-- can't describe him. There were animals from the zoo. And then... then...
Usually the Spree does two sets for the holiday show. This year they changed format a bit. Instead of just doing a set of Christmas carols they added an original play A Polyphonic Spree Carol (I think that was the name of it), written by the French horn player and based on a Christmas Carol. My friend Jason calls Louis, the French horn player, the Hugh Hefner of French horn players. Louis always has this serene smile on his face on stage. Surely he has more rabid and zealous fans than any other FH player. He is also an incredible writer and the play, which I expected to be funny but fluffy, in fact was hysterical with a great message added in. Tim wishes he'd never started the band. Then Santa Claus calls Tim, pretending to be God, and tells him he's going to see what happens if he gets his wish. Tim is visited by a very queeny holiday card representing Christmas past, a very electrifying dominatrix played by Audrey the flutist, a scary ghost of Christmas future who shows Tim that without the band the world will be entirely controlled by an entity known as Clear Station. Ultimately a wandering Jew and his donkey Ezekiel arrive to offer "conflict resolution" in the form of a parable about a shiny shovel. Tim realizes his errors, the band forms after all, and then they bust out the Christmas carols.
Even though I don't like to celebrate Christmas, even though I'm not a Christian, whenever those guys sing "Do You See What I See?" I get totally choked up. And even though I have globophobia, which is a severe fear of balloons (it's true), this is the one event where hundreds of balloons falling down from the ceiling don't terrify me. It did bug the crap out of me when the high school kids, whom I was squished up against at the front of the crowd, continually popped these balloons. I kept wanting to tell them I was a teacher and they were going to get an F for this behavior. But I just bit my tongue and waited. By this point it was between sets and I knew, from being at so many other shows, what would happen once the band returned. And I was right. As soon as they started singing the whole place simultaneously chilled out and freaked out. It is a bizarre phenomenon. Tim is genuinely charismatic, truly nice, and really cares about the audience. The band really likes their jobs. And the audience-- except for one young woman who kept smashing past me-- are downright polite.
After the show we hung out backstaqe for awhile. Henry and his friend Max-- they play their guitars together at clubs in Austin-- bagged a couple of older babes. The boys are fourteen. The girls claimed to be 16 and 17 and were very excited that we knew the band. So the four kids sat on a big leather couch while I sat and tried to be invisible in a corner. I made myself not drag them out of there after a half hour even though I was totally exhausted. I managed to finish knitting a fuzzy hat which I gave to Tim. (Julie liked it so much I am now making hats for their entire family.)
We got to the Motel 6 at 2 a.m. but everyone was hungry and so, despite my complete and total exhaustion, I took the kids to Denny's because, come on, what's a rockstar night without a greasy egg finale? It was the perfect Denny's experience with the waitress thoroughly confused when I ordered something that wasn't EXACTLY listed on the menu. We brought the scraps and a fresh side of bacon out to Bubbles who'd joined us on the road trip and was tired of being left alone in the car. The bacon went a long way toward earning her forgiveness.
At the motel, I left my keys in the car door. The phone rang a few hours later. The front desk had my keys. When we went out to the car to leave, there was a note on the windshield: "Your keys are at the front office. Reach for the sun." This was followed by a little happy face. The note made me cry. "Reach for the Sun" is a Spree song and clearly whoever left the note was also at the show. I'm telling you, listening to this band makes people nicer. Henry said next time we should leave the car running in the parking lot at the show and leave the doors unlocked. He's convinced we'll return to find the vehicle loaded down with gifts.
In other holiday news, I spent the day before the Spree show visiting Dripping Springs and Johnson City with my OUTSTANDING friend, Laura Freeman, who is also a musician. Laura should run wacky tours for a living. She took us to Jote's little quilting shop, Peacemakers, in Dripping. And then to Marianne's organic farm, Onion Creek farm, also in Dripping. And then she took us down the path to Joy. Joy is this woman who lives in a huge log cabin. She has a Christmas tree in every room. She also collects chickens-- live ones in the yard and then all sorts of chicken knick-knacks in her house. She must have a thousand chickens-- from cabinet handles to figurines to chicken hats and electronic chickens. (She also has a pepper grinder which uses SIX batteries. I loved that.) Joy and Laura were in a musical about quilting together back in '97. I'm writing a book about quilting and so they showed me a video of the musical. Joy seemed to remember it was 45 minutes. Actually I think it was closer to two hours and 45 minutes. Henry pulled me aside at one point and informed me that, to make this up to him, we would be spending the entire next day at the guitar store.
We did take a break in the movie to go and watch a live nativity at Joy's church. Joy's donkey, Taco, had a key role as an ass. The narration was provided by the booming voice of Perry Como pouring out of some huge speakers. I got choked up. I always get choked up at stuff like that. Poodles in tu-tus, baton twirlers, live nativities. More powerful than long distance phone commercials.
Anyway, so even though I don't like Christmas and even though I keep trying to ignore it, it did sneak up on me in a good way this year. And this week I'm in Houston with my friends who just had twin baby girls. I'm cooking for them. Cooking and reading and knitting and writing. A very good week indeed.
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