Du kan ikke fortælle spillerne uden et scorecard>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 13

Before I go any further, I feel you should get to know the cast of characters along the way, at least thus far and who will show up in the next set of chapters. Not that you don’t know them already, but from my standpoint, it certainly will help you understand them a bit better. Besides, you just can’t tell a player without a scorecard, now can you?

Pedro Da Palma-bassist, lead throat and tour organizer>He’s the one person I stayed in contact with most, from the early days upon when we first met through YouTube all the way through now in person, here in Aarhus. He’s the one that did a lot of the footwork for setting up shows and interpreting & relaying messages back and forth between venues, band members and kept us all at an even-keel, for the most part. His disposition is a pleasant demeanor and truly one of the calmest Danes I ever have gotten to know.

Jacob Mulle Nansen-drummer and backing vocals>I did a lot a Skyping with him in the many months leading up to the tour and we had a lot of great conversations, so I thought. Took in a lot of background, learned a bit of language, learned a lot about the Clean Boys. Overall, his disposition can be a little rough around the edges and slightly abrupt, but what drummer isn’t?

Andrzej Morks-guitarist & backing vocals-family man, jazz guy, father of two daughters, but perhaps the most practical of them all, perhaps in terms of ideals. One of the most diverse guys I had met yet, but also one of the hardest drinkers and heaviest smokers I have ever known (apart from Pedro and Mulle)! And one of those guys that you’d want to get to know, especially at a party and there was certainly a lot of that going on in the early days before the actual tour began!

Kasper Hayes (AKA Baconslap Hayes)-when introduced to me, he called himself, “The Roadie From Hell,” the guy who “promised” to drink all your beer, take all your women and eat all your food. Took me a bit to get used to him, to grow on me, but a real gentleman in every sense of the word.

Karsten Lund-our tour driver. He drove the camper van for the lot of our tour, with the exception of Mulle a few times, but again the majority fell into the responsible hands of Karsten. Karsten taught me a few Danish customs, kept me from being arrested in Germany (but that comes later in the story), has the coolest Hammond B3-organ, works at a cool school and like Kasper, a true gentleman and a big, big heart of gold.

Cisco Gulløve-Safari Freakshow Adventure “official” photographer and temporary transplant from Brazil. Upon meeting him, his first words out of his mouth, were “US Bluff,” which translated into the United States is full of shit; not exactly a warm welcome to Denmark from him, no in fact, the tee shirt he wore to welcome me with, was one worthy that only a criminal mind could pull off. Outside of that, he was a friendly and frugally practical man.

Den Sorte Fane-friend to Clean Boys and a few others I met in the early days of the tour; a Food Not Bombs organizer, local Aarhus activist, especially May Day, punk rocker-also a hater/basher of the United States, but outside of that, he was truly a friendly guy!

Estrid Balslev-what can I not say about Estrid? Intense brilliant Danish performance artist who truly gave a damn about what she was doing in her work and made it work so others like myself who were “foreign,” got it pretty rapidly. Before, I flew over to Denmark, I studied Estrid extensively and intensely, mainly on YouTube, though I didn’t speak Danish, I watched the films she was in and was fascinated by her enunciation and movement. I kept up a correspondence with her shortly before I arrived, upon the suggestion of Pedro (I believe). She turned out to be a great friend and felt like a 2^nd mother to me (other than my own) and when we met, I felt the connection, almost instantly-a little cliché, I suppose, but it was true nonetheless.

Vitawrapmand (AKA Michael Persson)-poet and performance artist, the guy who wore more sausage in strategic and sensitive places on his body than I could ever consume on the whole of the tour! Wrapped himself up in Vita Wrap (Danish version of America’s cellophane), shrieked through a bullhorn with often hilarious witticisms and poetry. Danced and performed and made music with a female vinyl blow-up doll. Also the guy who published poems of mine in his collective Danish quarterly poetry magazine. Slam-danced & moshed with me the whole of the tour. All-around nice guy.

Frede Nielsen-Safari Freakshow Adventure record producer and funny guy-three days younger than my brother Benjy. Produced and engineered a few of the shows on the tour, specifically in Horsens and Viborg.

Okay, Fint Du Er Sådan En Guide, Du Kører Toget, Og Se Hvad Der Sker!>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 12

Down below the Copenhagen airport, I found my way to the nearest train station. As I waited, I noticed how different everything looked. Pretty obvious being in a different country I suppose. But I also noticed how empty the train station was too. A little too empty, I felt. So I asked someone, who in turn, informed me that the reason very few trains were going by, is because someone less than an hour before I arrived decided to jump in front of a train and kill himself!

Only recently, had I listened to a segment of the American TV program 60 Minutes, in which they reported that Denmark was the best place in the world to live in, because despite the world’s problems, that their disposition remained happy and content. This was not the case, I gathered, as I dragged my airport cart w/my bags across the railroad platform and waited for another train to board.

If you’ve never traveled in Europe, let alone Denmark, their trains are much like America’s Amtrak trains-extremely roomy, fast, but with a bit of an old world style-perhaps similar to old Pullman trains from America’s golden years of train traveling, in that, usually during late afternoon or evening, a man would come through every train car with a service cart, selling a variety of Danish foods, candies, newspapers and magazines.

We got as far as Korsor, when an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the train was stopping, due to mechanical failure. Mechanical failure, I thought. The train was working just fine! Someone, whom I asked, explained to me that since Denmark is surrounded by water that if the train had actually broken down within the tunnels that it would take several hours to fix. Upon learning this, I tried my phone to make a call, but it didn’t work and I slightly panicked until I asked a stranger if I could borrow hers. Once I had her phone, I called Pedro to tell him I was going to be approximately 3 hours late. It was already nearly 4pm. He said not to worry and they would be there waiting to collect me when I arrived in Aarhus.

I could tell, however, that I was getting closer to understanding the make-up of Aarhus, just by observing the people on the train; like the three assertive artsy bikers who kept teasing the conductor about driving the train themselves, to which the conductor handed one of them the key and said in Danish, something like, “Okay, fint du er sådan en guide, du kører toget, og se hvad der sker!” Even though I didn’t understand the language so well, I understood the joking gestures, which is what Danes seem to have inserted within the stream of their language. It was a quality I admired.

So we waited and waited and waited for about another hour until a replacement train came in and boarded that one. Quite an adventure I thought thus far. Then as I boarded the train and found a place to sit down, I struck up a conversation w/a guy who actually knew who the Clean Boys were, a guy, in a leisure suit, with a button-down collar. He pointed out all the important architecture as the train sped along toward Aarhus.

And then the strangest thing happened. We pulled into a station named Middelfart! That cracked me up! Made me lose what little composure I had left. Middelfart! That city name made my trip at that point memorable! Then we passed by Horsens (where our record producer, Frede Nielsen) lived. It’s where the Danish state penitentiary formerly had been housed. As I continued to converse with the guy, the time seemed to go faster, as I drank in all the beauty that surrounded us.

At long last we were pulling into Aarhus, it was close to 7 pm and I began looking for Mulle and Pedro outside the train’s window. As the train slowed down, I saw them! I began to yell and scream for joy, which caused a few people to look at me strangely. When the train stopped, I grabbed my bags, dragged them down the steps and called out to them! And there they were! I was so excited and thrilled to meet them in person! We hugged each other and then Pedro & Mulle both told me in so many words that Morks would be picking us up within the hour and we’d be going down to the studio to rehearse.

I was weary, because I really hadn’t thought about doing that since I was so dead tired and dragging on my feet. After putting a bit of food in my stomach, Morks picked us up in his car and off we sped to Hi-Fi Cairo (Clean Boys’ rehearsal space). From there, we did a full take of Bite It You Scum, a GG Allin cover tune and even though I was terribly tired from lack of sleep and severe jetlag, I managed to belt out perhaps one of my coolest and weirdest versions of the song yet! Stumbling over words, I ended up creating a braggart phrase (though not intentionally) that would follow me wherever we went on tour (who the fuck do you think you are/just a Danish superstar) while in Denmark.

“Let’s call it a night,” Pedro remarked after the session.

I couldn’t agree more!

Flight To Denmark>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 11

When I arrived at O'Hare Airport, I had my main bag immediately checked and went straight for the international terminal lounge-it had been a while since I last traveled overseas-London, 2000 and that too was one heck of a time, but the difference with London and Denmark, I wasn’t going over to just hang out on my leisure---I had a job to do, promote a record, build a fan base and show Denmark what it is that I do best.

As I went through the security detection system in the international terminal, a beep went off and I was asked to go through again. Turns out it was my fish hat-my lucky hat, hat that has scared off more people than is known to man, so I’ve heard. At least witnessed it on my cross country bus tour of 2002. I was asked to take it off. Why? It had buttons on it, which had metal on it, thereby it was a threat to potential passengers I would meet and/or flight crew. The TSA security guard sheepishly traded looks with me and muttered, “Go figure.” Only in Chicago, I thought.

I waited for what seemed like hours and the eventually, a call for plane boarding was announced and aboard I walked. The plane I flew to Denmark, was rather roomy. 3 seats across, lots of magazines and newspapers to read within the eight and a half hour flight and plenty of free meals and lots of good booze too-not that I drank, but I did receive a nice small bottle of wine during the flight that I tucked away in my backpack.

The plane of course was packed. And other than having a booklet of CDs and a portable CD player and maybe one or two good books to read, I felt I was set. Eight and a half hours was a mighty long time to be flying in the air. So, after the first hour of settling into the flight, I listened to music. Then read and wrote a little in my paper journal too. Slept off my excitement until at least 7 am, when the lights came back on and babies were being weaned by their mothers. It would be a long day, I was convinced of it. we’d already flown through two time zones, another few changes were coming along the way, that much I knew.

Even though physically it felt like I’d flown for more than 8 hours, I knew that it was considerably less due to all the time changes and besides, it was based on Danish time, not American. As breakfast was being served and the lot of us passengers were chowing down, Danish newspapers were being passed out. Not knowing a word of Danish at that point, I thought the best way to learn it was by reading a newspaper, writing the words down I seemed to like or wanted to know about and then perhaps asking Clean Boys or whomever I encountered later when I needed help pronouncing.

Out of the many newspapers being passed around, I decided to pick out Ekstra Bladet; not sure why, but I think it had all the appeal of a sleazy tabloid like the New York Post or Chicago Sun-Times. I began reading and lo and behold, I stumbled upon my first word: sneaglefart! I had no idea what the word meant and asked the guy next to me if he knew what the word meant. He sheepishly said he had no idea, since he was from Holland and didn’t speak Danish. He sure looked Danish to me, my first mistake in assuming that all Danish men looked alike (with the exception of Mulle). I continued to read and of course in the process I fell asleep, at least until we were close to landing.

At approximately 1.30 pm Copenhagen time (6: 30 am Chicago time), we landed! It took me at least half an hour to get my bag and then I had to get past immigrations and get my passport stamped. I was nervous at this juncture. All those what if questions began to formulate in my head. It was the moment of truth as I stood in line silently. One by one people went to the counter where the master passport stamper sat. Don't offer too much information my friends told me. They were right, as I watched one man, who was told to stand to the right of the booth. Kiss-of-death and most likely denial of entry for him.

Then it was my turn. I had all my bags with me, a bit overloaded and an armful of Danish newspapers tucked beneath my left armpit. I stepped forward. The man behind the booth in his thickest Danish accent, speaking English to me, gave me the once-over and asked, "Do you speak Danish?" "No," I told him. "Then why do you have all those Danish newspapers?" I was a little startled, but answered, "So I can read and digest the words." He looked up at me perplexed and studied me further. Then he smiled. "What are you in Denmark for?" "Vacation," I told him. He laughed, stamped my passport and waved me through. "Welcome to Denmark," he said.

I was in! Yay!

And that guy still standing to the right of the booth? He didn't look too happy as Danish custom agents began frisking him.

And now the adventure truly began...

Eyjafjallajökull-We Are The Curse Breakers!>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 10

Nothing could have prepared me for the events that unfolded on April 14, 2010, 13 days before I would board a plane to take me to Denmark. Neither Clean Boys nor I could have possibly known this far in advance, that this crisis, the curse of all curses could dash our plans of a tour straight to hell.

I was in the beginning stages of packing my bags, one giant black bag with wheels, my small backpack and my laptop were all that was going with me. I decided; only take what I need this trip out. I’d be gone for nearly a month and also decided to pack light, knowing full well that I would be bringing plenty of trinkets back.

It seemed to be a running joke amongst others who knew me well, that I used to take virtually everything in the world that belonged to me, drag it halfway across America and then bring it all home again, on top of the other stuff I would pick up along the way. So when I told friends of mine that I was going to Denmark, a lot of them asked me if I planned bringing my entire apartment with me!

The morning of April 14 seemed like all the rest; I was lying in bed, listening to CBS News on my clock radio, when the broadcaster at the 7 am (Chicago time) hour, described something treacherous-something downright devastating and I nearly fainted the moment I heard it!

Eyjafjallajokull, an Iceland volcano, dormant for nearly 187 years, blew its top, causing European airspace to be shut down for nearly as long. I knew other things might have stopped me, but a volcano? None of us were prepared for this! Even as airspace was closed during of the first week or so, it affected millions upon millions of travelers around the world, several government agencies and airlines argued over the flight bans.

In the meantime, I kept in constant contact with Pedro and the rest of the crew. People all over asked me if I still had plans to go, now that the volcano had erupted; of course, I said at the time-Pedro was no different and told his fans the same thing---that tour was going ahead, even if it meant touring without me for the first few days or so.

Pedro offered a suggestion or two, such as, if I flew to Paris, he would drive all the way there, pick me up and then head back. Sounds mishegas, I know, but we had little choice in those early hours of the eruption.

In the days that followed, I monitored news reports and my airline, to see if my flight would be cancelled or scheduled as originally stated. As days wore on, European airspace opened up, airlines and European governmental agencies realizing that too much business was being lost and even though there were ash clouds floating all over, business resumed as normal.

We were relieved!

Pedro, as always would say, “We are the curse breakers!” how could I not agree with him this time?

As the hours ticked away on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, I knew I was prepared for just about anything. My bags all packed, my apartment locked, car dropped off a day earlier at a friend’s home, who would “take care of it” for me, while I was roaming around Denmark. As I rode the transit bus that mid-afternoon and headed toward O’Hare Airport in Chicago, I knew anything could happen at any time.

Yet, I also knew this would be greatest adventure I would ever embark upon. After April 27, 2010, nothing would be the same again.

Ever.

And that was indeed a good thing!

Mixing, Editing, Writing>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 9

Between the time after recording the tracks for the still as of yet, unnamed album (at that point) and before I left for Denmark, there was still plenty to do, like, name the album, come up with a name for a tour, get the tour dates, plan a budget, figure out what to bring with, figure out what I can actually take with and so and so forth.

Correspondence with Pedro via text, Skype and email was almost a daily routine at this point, but since Pedro, Mule & Marks were taking care of the tour dates and the other tour related stuff-the only thing we had to settle on as a whole, was a name for the album and the tour, the actual recorded tracks, which were sent back and forth and writing the liner notes for the record which was left up to me. On or about March 7, I finished writing the liner notes for the record, which we at this point decided was going to be called Safari Freakshow Adventure.

Here is the original liner notes I wrote for the album---before they were edited…

2009 was supposed to be my year, top of my game-then my world fell apart. That fall, I decided I wanted to do something totally brand new and so I strung together what I dubbed as my own punk opera; my own life story, as it relates to my own mental illness: clinical depression.

We arranged a date at two venues; Swing State! In Lake Villa, Illinois, while they managed to arrange a Denmark TV studio. The date we set was February 6, a Saturday night at preciously midnight. For Clean Boys it would be at 7 am. From there, everything seemed fine as wine, until January 2, 2010, when a fire broke out at Swing State! My venue was in limbo for some weeks, so I shopped around for another place to perform/record. Meantime, Pedro told me not to worry, as I began to chant that this date was cursed. I soon secured another date through the mistaken kindness of another friend, only to be kicked out a week later, for what he deemed us, meaning me and Clean Boys as too weird, even for his eclectic tastes. I wrote at least half-a-dozen proposals, all to have them turned down flat.

Nearly a week before, our show, Swing State! looked promising, as they had re-opened their doors for business once again and I felt a great sense of relief. And, like me, Clean Boys were handed a pink slip from the Denmark TV studio, who for all intensive purposes, backed out on them without explanation and they themselves, had to resort back to their own rehearsal space.

The record itself was recorded over Skype, a free downloadable telephone software program, plus two computers on both ends. I had a both a sound engineer, Popz (Dan Lee) and an events coordinator, Hugh Kennedy on my end and they had approximately five technicians, which included the other two Clean Boys, Andrej Marks, bassist and Jacob Mule Nansen, drums.

At sound check, that’s when all hell broke loose! The Clean Boys, who kept telling me to use two computers, one to receive and one to monitor sound/performance, throughout the time leading up to our live recording session, had the unfortunate luck of having their internet system crash, leaving them in a bind! I found that too humorous because we all expected my side to crash and the technicians at Swing State! managed to hold it all together!

By the time all was said and done, we recorded the album, with about nine people left in the whole of Swing State! I packed my car up, got some food before I hit the highway, tanked up at an interstate oasis and arrived home at 3:30 am. Now, if I was told nearly a year ago that I would end up making a record with a Danish punk band and ended up going over to tour with them, I would have said, “Yeah right!” But here it is, for your very ears to feast upon, my record w/Clean Boys.

Sid Yiddish, March 6, 2010

Pedro for the past several months had been calling our collaborations a sort of freakshow and one night, as I had come back from a routine pick-up from a local Freecycle group member, picking up a child’s flashlight, on the side of the flashlight had imprinted the words, Safari Adventure. I inserted Pedro’s phrase and viola! It made total sense: Safari Freakshow Adventure. The four of us had at last agreed on something that would represent us, perhaps in the light (pun intended) that we were supposed to have shine down on us in the first place.

Mule and I had been calling each other over Skype and we both had pretty long talks that would last well into the night. They had been doing their research on me and I did my research on them, so overall, I felt there was an even-keel pace to continue checking each other out.

But with different countries come different complications and it was perhaps one of the more usual complications of the entire trip. Back in December of 2009, I had stepped into Andy’s Music, a local instrument shop located in Chicago and while looking at instruments, I had struck up a conversation with one of the employees, who told me, that I would most likely need a permit to carry my shofar overseas, since it was a genuine animal horn and according to some, animal parts carried disease and without it I might be sunk.

So, I decided to contact the locale Danish consulate in Chicago and ask them. I made an inquiry and lo and behold, they had no clue and suggested I try the Washington, DC consulate. When I called the DC consulate and posed the same question to them, no one there knew and after prodding them for a bit, they gave me the email address of a Danish veterinarian, who he himself didn’t have a clue and then suggested I write to someone at the top Danish animal behavior school in within the country itself. In the meantime, I posted ads on Jewish-Danish forums with the same sort of questions, but to little or no avail. I was getting nervous, afraid my prize shofar would be confiscated when I entered the country.

Also by this time, the final rough mixes had been edited down and put in their proper place on the record, the photos for the album, including the CD label, liner notes and proper credits that would morph into the CD booklet and tour poster had been settled on, as well as final preparations for the tour itself, including the four writing workshops which I was prepared to teach, were finally in place!

With only six days to go an email arrived from Lone Henninger, a veterinarian from a Danish university in Ringsted, which was located about 35 minutes outside of Copenhagen, read in full, effectively giving me permission to carry a shofar with me. By then, I decided to play it safe and I purchased three additional shofar s that I could easily transport and keep well hidden in the event something happened.

But then of course, nothing prepared the four of us for the ultimate and seemingly final curse that was about to come shortly before I left America and arrive in Denmark.

And I mean nothing!

The Recording Session>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 8

It wasn’t particularly cold or snowy the week of February 1, 2010 in the Chicago area, as I recall it, but I am certain someone else will correct me-it’s called fading memory, but as always with the winter months, cold and snow always concerned me, especially since I had to drive 45 minutes northwest to the most important recording date of my life. And this day was no exception as I had to arrive to the space early, meaning, when the sun was still out, a strange concept to me, considering that I always performed at Swing State late and never ever saw the sun, but for this night, I had to be there early, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5pm, an hour or two before the regular show began.

We, meaning Clean Boys and I were scheduled to go on at midnight Chicago time, 7 am Copenhagen time, (February 7) but in the meantime, we had to do a sound check. For the sound check itself, Pedro had advised me to have two computers, one to receive and one to monitor sound/performance. So, I brought mine, a Lenovo top-of-the-line laptop at the time-I own a refurbished Dell now and our event coordinator stateside, Hugh Kennedy brought his laptop as well. The Clean Boys were to be projected on a movie screen, via Skype. A fool-proof plan so we thought!

And then of course, the inevitable happened at sound check on their side, apparently their internet wasn’t working so well. Try as they might, Clean Boys couldn’t get a good enough signal to transmit. It was the nearly the straw that broke the camel’s back, so-to-speak and especially for them, since they had been up for nearly 24 hours, testing and retesting everything, making sure their connection worked properly. All that work for nothing, so it seemed.

The night wore on-we continued to text each other, Pedro and I, now reduced to one computer on our end, discovering that one worked just as well as two. They had to have a little sleep, three hours to be exact and that’s probably all they had, by the time it was our turn to hit the stage. As always, I had my session at Swing State recorded. But this time, they recorded it two-fold: recorded full session recording in the left channel, live audience in the right channel.

In the midnight session, only nine people remained, mostly gathered around the bar toward the back-that was typical for Swing State, nobody seemed to care either way, except for a few of the more daring audience members who sat closer to the stage. A symbolic number for me, but even still. Before I hit the stage, I passed out plastic toy instruments; bird whistles, panpipes and maracas (for Jazz Haiku-A-Rama Part 1/Part 2 Swing State version), which I discovered later didn’t seem to pick up so well in the monitors-ah well, I live and learn.

The show began and so did the Skype connection. But as I also discovered throughout our session, nothing was perfect, as our calls dropped at least three times. However, as luck would have it, the calls would drop, just as we would finish each song, not a big worry, as I would call them back every single time, especially upon discovering later that when the call dropped during the recording of 75,000 Miles, the second part of DP: A Soundtext Punk Opera, they had a back-up plan, something that was partially recorded already.

Other than the call dropouts, the night seemed to go okay. Which were aces in my book. With a little time left to spare, I proceeded to throat sing the club owner’s girlfriend happy birthday, sadly she was too reluctant and rude for that matter, to even bother to come up to the stage, until she was coaxed to. After that, she went back to the bar and conversed with all of her friends as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

The session was filmed for posterity and to date remains unreleased. We had a good night. Clean Boys thought so too. I didn’t get out of Swing State until 2 am. Pedro and I continued to text each other, at least until I got into my car and drove back home. Our main job was now complete and temporarily in the can, until step two, which was for me to send the recorded files over to Pedro, who in turn, would get it over to the man (Frede Perle Nielsen) who would produce our record and make it sound sweet, sharp and clear.

Even as I fell asleep at my keyboard in that early morning time period, (I was to call Pedro over Skype and talk about the session-it was something we did in those early days of collaborating) it was one of the greatest nights I could have ever had.

And the world around me agreed.

Sunday Morning With Rick Kogan>How I Met Clean Boys>Chapter 7

Being on Kogan’s program was a thrill, not to mention absolutely plain weird! After being let inside, I was led to what they called “the green room,” which was nothing more than a couch, with a huge gray filing cabinet. I sat and waited, occasionally seeing one or two other people, still texting to Pedro that I had made it inside and was just waiting for them to come collect me to take me to the radio broadcast room. Time ticked slowly and I just wanted it to come faster than it did, but that the trouble with time and how those things work. Finally, at twenty five minutes after seven, I was taken by the producer and brought over to formally meet Rick Kogan, the radio broadcaster-but not a lot had changed between the time I had met him back in the fall of 2008 up until now, meaning, he still looked pretty much the same to me, low voice-the kind of voice I admired and made me think of all those old time radio broadcasts that I listened to on varying stations around the radio dial.

We said hello to each other and then he instructed me to sit down and slip the headphones on and I waited in silence for the news to be read, the commercials to run and so on and so forth. At last it was the moment of truth, 7:35 am, when Kogan introduced me to a waiting and perhaps an unsuspecting Sunday morning audience. In his introductory monologue of me, he read from the beginning of an article he had written for his Sidewalks column, in the then-Sunday Chicago Tribune magazine, in which he said, “We first saw and heard Sid Yiddish at a gathering of writers and entertainers one rainy September night at El Jardin, the Mexican restaurant popular for, depending on whom you ask, its food, its brain-numbing margaritas or its proximity to Wrigley Field.

He was part of one of the series of events that eventually became a book, "Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting till Next Year," which also features a short piece by me. Yiddish did a bit of singing and played the Shofar (ram's horn). He fooled around with a Ouija board. His act was at once appealing and odd. Some people scratched their heads, others laughed and some did both. When he asked what I thought, I said, "I think you make Andy Kaufman look like Jack Benny." He took this as intended, as a compliment…”

At that moment, I felt weird, but defiantly proud and weird and tired at the same time, since I stayed up all night just to catch the night bus, having been performing the night before at a hair salon opening in the city. And then Kogan said something like, “Sid, welcome to the program. I’ve seen a lot of entertainers in my time, but nothing quite like you.” That was an understatement! And on top of that, Kogan, like many before him and many after him, didn’t seem to know where to begin with me, but he found his way rather quickly and the questions started. Somewhere in the midst of all that, as I rattled off everything that I do, he asked me about throat singing and asked me to explain it and so I gave him the quick, short answer.

Then I asked him if he wanted me to demonstrate it for him. As he gave the listeners a word-picture description, I stood up and began to do a quick version of “Mykel Board Weasel Squeezer.” I had often wondered myself if I could actually throat sing at 7:45 on a Sunday morning and if there was any doubt in my mind that morning that I couldn’t, all of those what ifs were quickly erased, as I launched directly into it.

Another commercial & and a quick mad dash out-in cigarette break for Kogan and then in came Pedro, who had been called up by Kogan’s producer. Kogan asked Pedro how we hooked up, the concepts of the projects itself and a few other questions along the way.

By the time all was said and done-our mission was accomplished. Must have made a dent in something, because by the day’s end, I had 45 hits on my MySpace page-a personal best at that point for me. We were headed toward fruition-the Swing State recording session was right around the corner and while I had hoped for all the best the following Saturday night/Sunday morning, I had no idea neither what was in store nor what was waiting on the other side...as usual...