All posts by Matthew Callan

Endeavors Elsewhere, Shameless Self Promotion

Me, Talkin’: The Soundtrack Series

So: Next Thursday, December 22–a week from today, as the crow flies–I will be talking live onstage for The Soundtrack Series. This is a monthly storytelling event where participants choose a song and weave a tale around it. My tale involves John Phillip Sousa and a very high school brand of humiliation, two good things that go great together.

In addition to me, you can come see Franz Nicolay, who you may know from The Hold Steady, World/Inferno Friendship Society, or most recently of the Franz Nicolay. I can personally vouch for his storytelling abilities. If you doubt me, you can peep this tale of rock hubris he contributed to Scratchbomb a few months back. Also on the bill: Elna Baker, Cammi Climaco, and Jessica Halem.

If you’d like to get an idea of what this is all about, there is a Soundtrack Series podcast that I recommend subscribing to. (Julie Klausner’s entry on The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” is a good entry point.) The show goes down at 7pm at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street between Sullivan and Thompson (Manhattan’s fabled Cover Band District). Your attendance is mandatory, I mean, appreciated.

Seasonal Fare

Explaining Your Childhood, Christmas Edition

You can not recognize your natural environment for what it is until you leave it. Example: I grew up believing that I was middle class, because everyone was middle class, right? Therefore, the kids I went to school with, who all got comparatively more toys than me, were rich. The fact that their parents worked non-rich jobs like cop, fireman, and other varieties of civil servant never crossed my mind. Then I went to college and ran into actual Rich Kids for the first time and realized, to my horror, “No, those kids you went to school with were middle class; you were broke.”

This is a tale in the same vein, about a longstanding local Christmas tradition in the Orange County, NY area. And not even the whole county; really, just a concentrated part of it that happened to include my hometown. A farm supply/nursery in New Windsor called Devitt’s hosted an annual holiday attraction called Christmas on the Farm, something to entertain the kiddies while mom and dad shopped for chicken feed and Weed-B-Gone. (Though they were quickly being devoured by housing developments to accommodate the growing needs of White Flight, farms could still be found in the area in them days.) Christmas on the Farm involved petting zoos and Yuletide displays, but the highlight came at the very end, where you got to meet and talk to Eggbert.

Eggbert was an animatronic egg who sat on a large throne and wore a crown. His relation to any aspect of Christmas, religious or secular, was never explained. But it was understood that much like Santa, you told Eggbert what you wanted to see under the tree and he would deliver. Eggbert was voiced by an adult with a microphone, hidden behind one-way glass. Kids were given name tags so when they reached their final destination, Eggbert’s voicer could impart some personalized holiday greetings to them. In kid lore, a trip to Eggbert was not exactly equivalent to a trip to see a Mall Santa, but it was definitely a good way to hedge your bets.

I went to see Eggbert throughout my childhood, and so did every other kid within a 20-mile radius of Devitt’s. That was simply what you did at Christmastime. You questioned it no more than a fish questions the wetness of the ocean.

Continue reading Explaining Your Childhood, Christmas Edition →

Baseball

The Gift Basket Contents of Major Leaguers, Past and Present

Yankees star Derek Jeter, one of New York’s most eligible hunks since his split with longtime gal pal Minka Kelly, is bedding a bevy of beauties in his Trump World Towerbachelor pad — and then coldly sending them home alone with gift baskets of autographed memorabilia.

The Yankees captain’s wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kiss-offs came to light when he mistakenly pulled the stunt twice on the same woman — forgetting she had been an earlier conquest, a pal told The Post. – NY Post, 12/13/11

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: small picnic basket filled with plush centaurs

STEVE GARVEY: a bad check and a lecture on fiscal responsibility

JOHN KRUK: three jars of his own homemade pomade/gravy

DAVID WELLS: A case of Natty Lite, a convenience store display of Slim Jims, and a gift card to Bass Pro Shops

CJ WILSON: Youth of Today compilation, large bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap

DARREN DAULTON: step-by-step instructions on how to see into the secret, alien 7th dimension

JEFF KENT: a bag of Hall’s cough drops that happened to be left in the front seat of his car

OLD HOSS RADBOURN: tincture of laudanum, bone chilling stare on your way out of the hotel room

CURT SCHILLING: two-months of free gametime on World of Warcraft

JAMIE MOYER: hand-whittled doorstops–lady’s choice of duck or bear

ROGER MCDOWELL: can of “peanut brittle,” trick gum, pair of Bill Robinson’s cleats charred in successful hotfoot attempt

LUKE SCOTT: detailed manifesto on how the Illuminati and the Swiss bankers’ cabal are keeping evidence of Obama’s Indonesian citizenship from the American public

MANNY RAMIREZ: five pairs of tent-sized pants, several women’s hormone supplements

MIKE PIAZZA: Rush Limbaugh book-on-tape set, complete Cannibal Corpse discography

BABE RUTH: syphilis