The Wise & Jolly Old Elf

There are three hours and 50 minutes left of Christmas as I start to write this. Aside from things being a little tight financially and looking pretty bleak in the weeks to come (slow DJ season), I’d say this year was a success and a very Merry Christmas. The kids both got Nintendo DS game consoles; Lucas a black one and Cadence a pink one. They also got their share of other more traditional toys and clothing. It was enough stuff to keep them occupied for most of the day. And now they’re off to bed and hopefully quick to sleep.

The neatest thing last night (Christmas Eve) was a visit from Santa Claus. I had totally forgotten that we had purchased a Santa suit last year. We were somewhat disappointed with the sizing and quality of the thing once we got it –considering the $75 we paid for it- and we ended up not using it at all. Since this was our first Christmas at home and we were already preparing a Swedish Christmas Eve dinner, my wife thought we should go a step further and do another Swedish tradition… a Christmas Eve visit from Santa. She reminded me about the suit and I tried it on earlier that day for good measure. The plan was set into motion.

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with ham, Swedish meatballs, pickled herring, mashed potatoes, and some other unpronounceable traditional Swedish dishes. And, of course, snaps! After dinner, we moved the kids downstairs with our friends who celebrated the evening with us. I sneaked into the bedroom and got into the Santa suit. Then I exited the house from our bedroom, onto the deck, down the steps, out the gate, and around to the front of the house. I walked past the window where everyone was a couple of times until my kids saw me. They freaked out.

I came to the door, walked in, and sat down. My wife had given me a present for each of the children ahead of time. I handed them the present and warned them –in my best Santa voice- to be good and go right to bed. “Otherwise, I won’t be back later with more presents.” With that, I made my exit and as I headed out the front door I turned and said (this was more to give the adults a chuckle) “And don’t eat the yellow snow!!”

Once I was out the door, I quickly got back to the bedroom and changed back into my regular clothing and then popped downstairs and asked “What’s going on?!” The kids were jumping up and down... “Santa was here! He was here!”

It was obvious (but shocking) to me that they had absolutely no clue that it was me in a cheap Santa suit. I even went so far as to ask my son “How do you know it was the real Santa and not some imposter dressed up in a Santa suit?” He explained that this was the real deal because “Mom saw his reindeer out front!”

Nice cover, honey.

I pulled it off. I pulled off being Santa. It was fun. I did want to see if any of Santa’s warnings about being good had penetrated their sugar-saturated skulls so I asked “What did Santa tell you guys?”

My daughter chimed up first all excited. “He said to not eat yellow snow.”

Christmas at Home!

We've lived in this house now for three years. This will be the first Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that we -the entire family- will spend in it. Every year, for the past five or six (or seven?) years, we've had a standing invitation for holiday dinners at the Hohman's. Elizabeth Hohman and her husband, Bill, live right outside of Wilmington, Delaware -their property/development is actually in Pennsylvania, but they can drive 1/4 mile down the road and be in Delaware. Weird. Anyhow, my wife shares a very distant family relation with Elizabeth. You ready?

Elizabeth is my wife's step-mother's cousin. Therefore, Elizabeth is pure-bred Swede. She's lived with her husband, Bill, in the United States for over 30 years. Bill is an OBGYN. Bill and Elizabeth have three grown sons; Eric, Johan, and Will. Eric and Johan are married. Will was the last time move out of the Hohman homestead just a couple months ago. He and his girlfriend of many years, Katie, found a cute house that they just bought and moved into.

Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners at the Hohman's are always special and always overflowing with good Swedish food, strong Swedish liquor (snaps!), laughter, singing, and good conversations. Although the relation between Elizabeth and my wife is distant and through marriage at best, we are consider part of the Hohman clan and our kids are more like grandchildren to Elizabeth and Bill who, up until the birth of Eric's son, Oliver, a couple months ago, had no grandchildre of their own.

Growing up, it was just me and mom. No extended family, no big dinners, no real holiday traditions. It was always warm, cozy, and intimate though but certainly nothing like we've been experiencing the last couple of years at the Hohman's.

But this year, Elizabeth "moved" Christmas Eve dinner back a couple days to December 20th in order to accomodate everybody's schedule and her husband, Bill. As I said, he's a doctor and, sadly, he'll be working Christmas Eve into Christmas Day.

We went up this past Saturday and had a great time and got to celebrate Christmas with the kids a little early. Bill and Elizabeth always buy them gifts which, of course they HAD to open right then and there.... They even got me a cool wine decanter and a wine book. And my wife got a gift card for the gap and some other goodies.

So we really lucked out this year because, not only did we get to carry on the tradition with the Hohman's, we now can look forward to our FIRST CHRISTMAS EVE AT HOME. We're making a nice dinner in the Swedish tradition and we'll have a few friends over to help us celebrate. And then, for the first time in three years, we'll snuggle down in our own bed with our dogs Woody and Linus (and Miss Kitty too!) and go to sleep and journey into Christmas Day. I'm looking forward to it.

The economy sucks, it's been a rough year financially and emotionally for me, but I still realize how much I have to be thankful for. And I'll tell ya, I'm real thankful to be spending this Christmas at home with my family and NOT on the road.

Ah, Christmas

My dad died the week before Christmas and was buried on Christmas Eve. I was two years old, so I don't remember it nor was I traumatized by it. How can you miss something (someone) you never had? He wasn't too keen about having another kid anyway. My mom was 40 when I was born... my dad was 59. That means he'd be 99 if he were alive today. He already had eight kids with his first wife and all of them were out of school and their own for the most part. Imagine his shock when I showed up. He was way past that Fatherhood thing. Apparently, it was all too much for his ticker. He died of a massive heart attack after hanging the Christmas lights and having sex with mom. He about to take a relaxing bath and then -blammo!- he keels over dead on the bathroom floor. Mom heard the thud, ran upstairs and found him laying there. Mom was a nurse and she knew right away he was dead. It wasn't his first heart attack. In fact, that's how they met... he was in the hospital recovering from a previous heart attack and my mom was his nurse. He never took good care of his health.

I know the holidays always sucked for mom but she always made sure to put on a good show for me... decorations, twinkling lights, a Christmas tree... We never had a lot of money, but somehow mom always made sure I got pretty much what I wanted (and everything else I needed) for Christmas. She was the best mom.

Once I got older, I kinda fell out of the Christmas spirit. It all became too commercialized to me. Every year, the Christmas decorations hit the store shelves earlier and earlier. This year, they started showing up a few days after Halloween. It makes me feel that the holiday is being FORCED upon me. "You WILL celebrate Christmas. You WILL spend a lot of cash buying gifts for people who you otherwise wouldn't -but you know they're going to get YOU something (stupid) and so now you're obligated." It's a vicious circle. An exercise in futility. Yes, I know... I should change my name to Ebeneezer.

But this year is different. I'm actually in the Christmas mood. This is probably the WORST year financially, but I still have an itch to decorate (I dropped $300 on new outside lights) and I managed to get my wife a surprise gift. We got the kids some cool big-item gifts and -thanks to my DJ gigs at Nordstrom's (yeah, I was back there yesterday), I have some more money to pick up some stocking stuffers in time for Christmas Eve.

I have one regret. Not being able to help those less fortunate than me and my family. I know of such a family through a mutual friend. They have five kids -all girls- with another bun in the oven. The girls range in age from 3 to 11. My friend says they don't have much. Most of kids don't even have warm enough clothes for the winter let alone toys. I wanted to take a couple hundred bucks and buy each kid a toy and maybe some gloves and hats. I wanted to also deliver a grocery order for mom and dad. But I ran out of time and I have no money to do it. I've resolved to make a plan NOW so this doesn't happen next year. I figure I could DJ a few gigs and allocate that money specifically for one or two families. I think I could even get local businesses (Nordstrom's) to jump on the bandwagon.

I'm still hoping for some extra cash though to help those kids. They're really on my mind.

More thoughts on Christmas later! I might even share my new Christmas song with you... Three days and counting....

My Kids are already smarter than me

I have two kids. Lucas is five now. He'll turn six on January 16th. Cadence is four. Her birthday, August 9th, is one day before mine and two days before our wedding anniversary (no, I'm not married to my daughter - I meant my wife and I).

They say part of the joy of having children is being able to discover the world again through their eyes. They have so many questions and there's so many simple things that amaze them when they're this young. It's also a fine opportunity for a wise-ass such as myself to get a few doozies over on them. For the longest time, I had both kids convinced that I could change traffic lights from red to green simply by blowing in their direction. I, of course, was watching the opposing lights and timing it so that when they changed to yellow, I took a big inhale and blew. I'm not sure they understand the whole system yet, but I'm sure they know dad has a trick to doing it now.

With Christmas right around the corner, I thought I'd come up with an ingenious way of getting through stores without having to buy a bunch of toys and without just flatly rejecting the kids' requests and having them start bawling in the store. My secret? THE LIST. Ah yes, whenever my daughter pointed out a toy or a piece of clothing (yep, she's already into clothes and makeup) she wanted, I'd say "Well Christmas is coming... be good... I'll add this to 'the list' and we'll see how you behave."

This work very, very well for the longest time until last Friday. Cadence was sick and had to stay home from preschool. My wife had already committed to helping some friends exercise some race horses. So, I selflessly stayed home from work and hung out with Cadence. I figure the kid's sick... this is a chance for me to catch some shut-eye and kick back for the day. Nope. She didn't feel like snuggling with daddy. She wanted to color. She wanted to read books. She wanted (me) to play with her dolls. It was driving me nuts. Finally, I suggested we go to the gym. See, the gym has "kids club" where parents can drop off their little terrorists for an hour or two while they work out, take a class, or go for swim.

My work-outs are no walk in the park but faced with the option of four more hours of harassment at home from my daughter, the gym seemed like nirvana. I also made a side-deal with Cadence that, after the gym, I'd take her to lunch and we could eat anything she wanted. She chose sushi. Yeah, you heard me. The kids eats sushi (California rolls) like they were candy. She like Miso soup and yellowtail sashimi too.

So after the gym and a shower, we end up eating at this local sushi joint called Yamoto. Two doors down from Yamoto is The Bike Doctor and Cadence asked very nicely after lunch if we could go in and look around. I obliged.

It only took a few seconds for Cadence to pick out this snazzy pink bike right inside the front door.

"I want this one daddy!" she said insistantly, slapping the seat with her hand.

"But you already have a bike, Cadence."

"No, that's an old bike. I want this one. Lucas got a new bike."

I knew I was heading into the weeds with this conversation so I fell back on THE LIST. My saviour. Mentioning the list has gotten me out of so many potential public tantrums, I almost considered trying it on my wife.

"Well," I started "Ya know Christmas is coming. If you want we can put it on the list and see what happens."

Cadence put her hand up as if she was stopping traffic. "No daddy! I have enough things on the list! I want this bike now! The list is full already!"

I was dumbstruck. So much for the list. I quickly ushered her out of the store and went to Plan B. "Hey, how would you like an ice cream?!"

I kinda thought that was the end of the story. My daughter had outsmarted me and had circumvented the tried and true list philosophy. But she wasn't done yet. Later, when we picked my son, Lucas, up from the school bus stop, she proudly proclaimed "Guess what Lucas! Me and daddy when to the bike store today and we're getting new bikes tomorrow!!"

Yeah, it took a few minutes to get out of that one... especially with "the list" expunged from my arsenal.

All I Want for Christmas...

So tonight I played the annual Annapolis Christmas Show at Rams Head Onstage in Annapolis. In fact, it was the 10th Anniversary Show and I was honored to be a part of it. I was also very happy to have my old guitar player (from the band) Brian Baker be able to back me up on my two original Christmas songs.

It's really funny how things work out and come together. Brian lives in Key West now but he was up here in MD taking a class for work and decided to call me & the Mrs. to see if there was a night this week when we could hang out. I, of course, immediately roped him into playing the Christmas show with me and he came over last Sunday and did a crash course in the two original Christmas songs I planned to play.

And so we did. Tonight. And it went off REALLY well. The onstage sound at Rams Head... um... SUCKS!!! But since I've played there a few times, I knew this going in. And so did Brian. So we just ran through the songs as we'd rehearsed and let the audience be the judge. From all the feedback afterwards, I'd say we pulled it off. Made me realize how much I miss Brian and the band. It is REALLY a pain in the ASS to find a band, rehearse a band, get along with a band, and gig with a band. But what makes it all worth while are those few gigs that just make you feel like you are kings of the world. We had a few of those while "the band" was together. And I'll always look back on those times fondly.

But times and people change and times and people move on. So it was nice for the stars to align, for all the cards fall into place, and have Brian back in town and on stage with me. It was a nice Christmas gift.

After the show we hung out at Stan & Joe's Saloon and we actually sat in there and played two songs... this time Brian played drums. What can I say!? He's a jack of all trades!

The only regret.... I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow.

Man. That SUCKS.

DJ Michael K. Rocks the House at, um, Nordstrom's??!

Yeah.

Saturday afternoon I DJ'd at Nordstrom's... the high-end department store at Westfield Annapolis. Yup. Set up right in the center of the store, first floor, by the escalators. I had a clear view of the folks entering from the mall entrance and the front entrance. Font-left of me was the cosmetics department; front-right, women's shoes. Behind me- the escalators. And to my immediate right there was a red chair with a sign: "This Seat Reserved for Mrs. Claus".

You may be asking yourself "Why in the world would Nordstrom's hire a DJ to spin music for four hours?" Join the club. Apparently, the thought was it would add a dash of festivity to the holiday season. And, if you ask me, I'd say that I succeeded and EXCEEDED all expectations. So much so that they asked me back next Saturday. Too bad I'll be in Delaware.

So let me set the scene. First off, I had very little details about the gig. The store admin was new on the job and we were playing phone and email tag the whole week preceding the gig. A few days before, I gleaned that they wanted a mix of holiday and top-40 music. That was it as far as details.

When I arrived, I met up with Alex, the maintenance guy from Russia (or some kin Slavic nation). Alex tried to be very helpful and would have had more success in the endeavour had he actually understood English.

"You need table?" he asked.

"No." I replied.

Two minutes later Alex shows up with a collapsable table. "This good size?" he asked proudly.

"No, I don't need a table, thank you."

"Where should I set up table?" Alex continued.

"Alex, I don't need a table... no table... no need table.... no."

Alex looked confused for a second. "You don't want table?"

"No, Alex, thank you though."

So then I find out that the management at Nordstrom's had planned on the music covering the second floor. Since I only had two speakers and no extra cables, this was a problem. Nordstrom's had speakers, but they were all self-powered and there was just no easy way to chain them to my sound system and I didn't have the right connectors to make it work. This, of course, was hard for Alex to understand as he kept on showing up with different speakers and wires hoping he had found the right ones to hook up with my system. Finally, he gave up and left. That's the last time I saw Alex that afternoon.

So I proceeded to play music. I played modern-day remakes of all the Christmas standards as well as some new Christmas songs (including my own!). In between these, I smattered some ear-friendly top-40, some lounge/jazz-type selections, and some classic pop and soul. Basically, whatever I felt like playing. The mix went over very well and I had a LOT of compliments from shoppers and Nordstrom's staffers alike. Of course, it wouldn't be a successful DJ gig if I didn't have at least one person come up and complain that the music was too loud (it was at "3" on my mixer). Apparently, to one haughty shopper "The music is SO loud, I can't even carry on a conversation with the sales associate!!"

"Huh?" I replied.

No, not really, but in hindsight that would've been HILARIOUS!

I consider the afternoon a raving success, but it was still one of the weirdest DJ gigs I've done in all the 15 years I've been doing this. I mean, I'm standing in the middle of a store at the intersection of two entrances watching people come in (some bee-bopping to the music) and looking at me and thinking "What's HE doing?"

And there I am standing there trying to strike some sort of a pose to portray a sense of "oh yeah, I belong here... just another DJ doing another job." I felt awkward. But I got a lot of compliments on the mix of music -which surprised me. And I had three of four shoppers come up and ask about a song... "Who sings this?" or "What's this song called?" That just supported my belief that I am a master music mixologist. And it gives me proof that music really moves people. And that give me hope that MY music will someday move the masses.

Adventures of DJ Michael K. Part 1

So tonight I did a fill-in DJ job at PESCE in Annapolis. Formerly Pesce Grande, formerly Piezano's Pizza. This was actually the first time I'd been in there since back in the day when it was Piezano's. Wow! What a transformation. From neighborhood pizza joint to upscale Italian restaurant & bar... nice.

I got this job through a casual DJ acquaintance who sent out a blind email to all his "DJ buddies" to see if anyone could cover the show. In his own words it would probably be a "laid back gig that would end early -say midnight." It was the first night of a new promotion - "College Night - 18 & over". Since it was starting a week earlier -with little advertising in place- no one really expected the 300+ people that showed up. Least of all ME. I was treading water from the get-go. I love to beat-mix and I'm all about playing dance/club music all night. The only problem is I haven't been able to do that for so long, I was kinda out of the loop and at a loss for what to play. Sure, I have most of the current club/top-40/hip-hop, but I just haven't had the opportunity to play a lot of it with the weddings and bar gigs that I've been doing over the past year. Still, I held my own and the night was a success. I know this because the owner and the manager both asked for my business card and said about me coming back.

There were two REALLY funny episodes that are locked in my mind:

#1- My friend, Rich (Dickie) showed up with a bunch of his friends early in the evening. I had sent out an email to my "peeps" letting them know I'd be there. He was unpleasantly surprised to learn it was College Night. Him and I were probably the oldest guys in there. Still he brought some other friends from work and although Dickie left within an hour of arriving, some of his drunker friends stayed and danced.

#2- I'm With the DJ Girl -
So the age demographic was an average of 24 -and that's generous given the number of under-21 folks that were there. I felt SOOOO old. But I was still trying my darnedest to exude my "Cool DJ" vibe. It must have worked because this chic (man I wish I could remember her name) came up and started trying to dance with me while I was DJing. She was attractive and would have been even more so if it weren't for the black eye, the hat on side-ways, and her firm grasp of ghetto jargon. I wasn't sure if she was poking fun at me or coming on to me. Never have I felt so old and so white in my life. There she was grindin' and workin' it for the DJ... bending over and shoving her ample booty (yeah, I said booty) all up in my junk (see, I got the hang of this slang, homey). Frontwards, backwards, arms around my neck... from the front, from the back. And there I am... trying to keep the beat with her grinding ass, knowing full well how utterly ridiculous I look to her and everyone else. I kept telling her "I can't dance." and she kept saying "yeah, I can see that." but yet she kept on with her bad self. I wish I had a video of the whole thing. I'd have a good laugh at my own expense. I find myself wondering now where/how the hell she got that black eye... a previous DJ? Bwah ha ha!

OK, it was fun. And I'd like to do it again simply for the adventure and the learning experience. A good excuse to learn this new music that I can't stand to listen to. But hey, it's different when you're DJing... and you have 100 people on the dance floor going wild over a song... a song you know is stupid and annoying to you in any other setting except this one.

Busy Weekend of DJing

Being a DJ is a fun job. It's an up-and-down kind of job too. I do a lot of weddings. People book me for weddings months in advance. This is a good thing. I collect a deposit and then plan out my year based on my bookings. All that changes in the "slow season" which starts in November and continues through April. Of course in December and January you get a lot of last-minute bookings... holiday parties, fill-in jobs at bars and clubs... happens every year around this time. Good thing too because Christmas is only about two weeks away and I still have lots of gifts to buy and no money to buy them with.

So this weekend is the fill-in/last-minute job weekend. I started out last week with one job - a Saturday evening wedding reception. Now I have FOUR DJ gigs between Thursday and Saturday night.

Last night (Thursday) I DJ'd at Stan & Joe's Saloon on West Street Annapolis. It was my third time there in the past 12 months -each time as a fill-in when a band backed out or there was a schedule snafu. It's a cool place. It reminds me of how Acme Bar & Grill was "back in the day" when I ruled the roost there. Acme is totally different now but that's another story. Anyway, it's been a while since I had a regular weekly DJ gig to go to. Ever since I quit Heroes back in July -yeah, yet another story we'll have to chat about some time. The weekly bar gig is tough -especially when it's a Thursday night and you have to get up on Friday and go to the day job. One nice thing though is the regular flow of spending money. I miss that. So does Asa. She hates to be alone at night and I know sometimes I'm hard to deal with the next day when I'm tired from the night before. But if I were to DJ a regular weekly gig again, it would probably be Stan & Joe's. It wasn't that crowded at all last night -maybe because of the dropping temperature and the torential downpour of rain- but I had a good time. Everyone had a good time. It's always nice to hear "Man, you should DJ here more often." from the staff as you're loading out. I even had a few patrons praise my mad DJ skills -that's always nice, but sometimes you gotta take that kind of input with a grain of salt. A drunk person will declare you the greatest DJ in the world and all you had to have done is play his favorite song right before last call. Wow. But when you have the bartenders and the manager giving you the approving nod, well that means a little more.

I don't profress to be the greatest DJ that ever played in Annapolis, but I truly believe I'm uniquely different because I really love and appreciate the music and I approach my job as being to play what the people want to hear while, at the same time, mixing in music that'll move them to a different place or emotion. I'm good at that -mixing music together. I have an uncanny ability to mix or group songs together to create a vibe that affects people. I don't think there's many other DJs around town that can do that as well as I can. And I know there's nobody who cares about music like I do. Maybe it's because I'm a songwriter and musician too. Maybe it's my compulsive tendancy to always try to please everyone. And I say this with the greatest humility... I'm a really nice guy. I don't stand behind my mixer and act all cool and aloof just because I'm the DJ. I welcome requests and conversations with patrons. I try to make a connection with them. And I think folks really appreciate that -even if it's more on a subconscious level. That's part of the problem with drunk people. They're you're best friend in that moment but they don't really "get" how talented you really are. Sometimes neither does the management. DJing IS AN ART. Most people -most DJs- don't get that.

So tonight I'll be DJing at a new bar/restaurant in Annapolis. I actually played live there years ago with my band (when the place had a different name and different owners) but I've never DJ'd there. It's an upscale Italian restaurant called Pesce (PESH-ay) - it means "Fish". There's another local DJ who is "in" with the management and DJs there a lot. At the last minute, the owner decided to start a new promotion "College Night - 18 & Over" - and he decided to start it a week early. So this DJ who normally works there already had another party booked and he sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to fill-in. And so here I go. It will probably be dead there since it's not in a busy part of town and it's a brand new promotion. Still I'm curious to see what it's like in there now that it's gone upscale. If the management/staff are nice and the atmosphere is accomodating, perhaps I can turn that into a regular gig.

And that brings us to one of the strangest DJ gigs I've ever booked... Saturday afternoon I will be DJing at Nordstrom's in the Annapolis Westfield Mall. Don't ask me any specifics because I don't know squat. Don't know what type of music, where exactly I'm setting up, why I'm playing, etc. All I know is it pays $400 and I'm hoping it's an easy opportunity for some extra money before my wedding that evening at Paul's on the South River. So maybe I'll have some good stories from these gigs to blog about.

Welcome to the Blog

Yeah, I had to see what all the fuss about blogs was all about. And lately it seems there's been a lot on my mind that I don't mind sharing with others -especially after reading some of the thoughts of other people "out there" in Internet Land.

So I'm a DJ/Singer/Songwriter/Husband/Father and I have a day job working for HP -yeah the computer folks.

Actually, I have to DJ tonight in Annapolis so I don't have a lot of time to chat right now but at least I got this blog thing "wheels up".