The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

So you wannabee an American Idol?     You’ve practiced in the shower, you’ve performed countless hours at the Stanwoodopolis Karaoke bars, you’ve taken it about as far as you can on your own.  Now it’s time to take it to the Next Level!      The Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin, the Julliard of the metropolitan South End, now offers advanced Idol training, especially focusing on proven techniques to maximize your chances at becoming an X-Factor finalist or an American Idol winner.  Our instructors, graduates from the finest D.J. discos in the U.S. and Canada, will provide you with that ‘insider’ knowledge you need to compete at the national level.     You’ll learn  HAIR STYLING TECHNIQUES guaranteed to turn judge’s heads.   DANCE ROUTINES so easy yet effective that judges scarcely notice  wrong notes.  FASHION TIPS of former graduates and even regional finalists!  Dress for success!      Our professional staff will train you in voice stylings from rap to bebop, Sinatra to Madonna.  Croon like Crosby one song, then gangsta rap to Eminem.  Wow your friends with versatility instead of virtuosity!

Before your 2nd quarter tuition payment is due you’ll be headlining at the open mikes of Smokey Point and Mt. Vernon.  By graduation you’ll be forming your own act and performing in nightclubs and lounges where Everett talent agents water down.

Don’t spend your most productive years in the Karaoke caverns.  Let the Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin hone your talents to a fine edge and put you on the freeway to musical success.        Enroll Now!   Call I-WANNABEE –A -STAR   today and get ready for a dazzling career in the spotlights.   Ask about our E-Z Payment Plans.   Highly endorsed by the South End String Band, 1998 graduates!!

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[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/audio-American-Accountant-Audition.mp3[/podcast]audio — American Accountant Audition

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Billy Nashville was wailing on a red Gibson he’d put stick-on gold letters up the body that read B-I-L-L-Y  S-I-X G-U-N. His real name, William Cosnosczski, wouldn’t fit in neon, he claimed, so he changed it to a stage name he thought better suited to his debut in Nashville. None of us figured Billy had ever owned a gun, certainly never shot one, but Billy 6-Gun only had to write ballads of bad marriages, drunken brawls, truck driving romance, heavy drinking and hard living. He didn’t know anything about those either and Nashville wasn’t waiting for him to learn, not when most of the songwriters came in from Hard Rock County, Tennessee or Whisky Creek, Kentucky, practically born with a guitar in their pudgy little hands and bottle fed Jack Daniels.

Poor Billy grew up in Olympia, Washington, then ended up on the South End when his parents moved here, not exactly an early retirement. We all thought maybe his Daddy shoulda gone to Nashville. With or without a 6 string.

Billy 6 Gun or Billy Nashville or William G. Cosnosczki, he wasn’t half bad on that cherry red Flying V Gibson. The trouble is, half the damn males in America aren’t half bad either. And some of them write decent songs. And every now and then, one of them looks good on stage. Unlike Billy …

Music is like any art medium, it’s hard — very hard — to make enough money to keep above water while you learn the ropes. And trust me, there are ropes. Some to hang yourself by, but some to swing to another level. If we made accountants work this hard for so little money, well … maybe this would be a world filled with song instead of one painted by numbers. Just my opinion, of course. Not based on scientific data. Or even much research.

Billy still plays the open mike down at the South Grange every Wednesday night. He’s talking about a Try-Out with American Idol. Good luck, Billy, I say. Just don’t be too disappointed. Don’t quit playing, don’t quit singing. And if you ever get despondent, consider this: there is no, and never will be, an American Accountant. Because, really, why would anyone with a soul care? Just my opinion. Of course.

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After a grueling day of multiple airports, missed flight, midnight check-ins, we finallyu woke up in Albuquerque, some hotel off the interstate, (audible traffic in the background). So with a fairly okay night’s sleep we stumbled down to the hotel’s breakfast for some java and juice with our fellow travelers who all watched a program called, appropriately enough, Good Morning America.

From the back of the breakfast nook I couldn’t tell who were the celebrities and who were the hosts. The crawler told us the names of a movie star and TV star while we skimmed a USA Today, about half the size of the last one I read years ago.

If that’s all the news fit to print, yeow, we might as well do like the rest of our fellow sojourners, just spend our morning getting to know the temporarily famous. Some woman from the Walking Dead was chatting it up with some woman I sure didn’t know either alongside a woman from a movie I’d never seen. The sound was off or else I’d gone into involuntary audio shutdown.

In a world rampant with creepy trollers, you might ask yourself who would want to be famous. And the answer — ready made for a PhD sociology paper — is … everyone. We apparently want others to know us, at least superficially. A member of our band came to a practice telling us how she’d met a person who had never heard us live, but knew OF the South End String Band. She was visibly upset. I said offhandedly, ‘that’s cool,’ but she shook her head and replied, ‘they didn’t know who I was.’

‘Isn’t that kinda the point, that the Band got some name recognition?’ I asked. She said accusingly, “they knew who YOU were.’ What they ‘knew’, of course, didn’t matter. They didn’t know HER.

The Band had its 15 minutes, I apparently got 5 seconds, but she got nada. So she quit. The South End String Band got zero Grammy nominations once again this year, our 17th. I play the banjo. I could care less if they know my name. I’m the banjo player and we’re the South End String Band. I feel bad, but not very sorry, some of us lost our way. I hopes she’s auditioning for American Idol. If it’s even still on …

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Maybe you’ve heard the internet chatter to run Oprah for president. Aiiee Carumba! I guess I need to watch more TV. Seems to me we’re looking for politicians who are popular television personalities now. Reagan, Trump, now Oprah. Dr. Oz for Vice President. Dancing with the Stars winners for cabinet posts. Maybe we’ll like government better if we fill it with our favorite stars of screen and TV.

On the other hand, maybe we should just have a National Lottery. No skills needed, just luck. A lot of luck, the kind that might take a person a long ways with trade negotiations, arms deals, welfare reform, tax reductions, Supreme Court nominations, health care fixes, all those decisions we thought took professionals with expertise and experience. I guess we don’t need that now. We need someone with ratings. We need someone with luck. That’s all we need.

Civilizations fall. Greece, Rome, the Mayans, the Incans, Aztecs, American Idol. Way of the world. Somewhere along the line the droughts hit, food becomes scarce, plagues decimate the population, the neighbors wage war, leaders become too corrupt or too inbred or too inept. Ratings go through the bottom.

Always something as we say on the South End, yet another lost civilization. Why not take a run at TV game show hosts running the machinery? Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. One luck, one trivial pursuit. Spin the wheel, pick a door or a curtain, go for the Daily Double. Sure you could lose it all on a single roll, that’s the fun for us in the audience. I’ll take the Middle East for $600, Alex. “What is the 6 Day War?” No???

The Oprah brand is as vast as Trump’s. As president she can recommend books, offer magazine subscriptions, dole out sympathy. We can struggle together with her weight issues, follow her tabloid accounts. We can hope she heals the country. I’ll wager $2700 on U.S. Government, Alex. “What have you got to lose?”

Good try, but sorry, that is not the answer we’re looking for, Skeeter. That leaves you with only $100. Thanks for playing Jeopardy!

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A man died today in a pancake eating contest. In his zeal to excel he clogged his food chute with the tasty but expansive buttermilk cakes and expired before any Heimlich maneuver could expel the carbojam from his alimentary. These things happen, of course. No one said fame would be easy. Sad to say, same day, another contestant died eating in a donut gobbling race. In the dog eat dog world of gourmet eatery contests, these two are now heroes even if their names are already forgotten.

Maybe they should’ve dedicated themselves to the hot dog eating competitions. Less bun, more meat, but who knows if this would have saved their lives or not. The quest for a Guinness world record leads many of us down a treacherous trail, but usually not an early demise. Nevertheless, the sacrifice, however steep, makes the effort that much more poignant.

I myself am not much of a pancake or a donut enthusiast, I don’t care how much maple syrup lubricant you add to the coagulated glutinous mess or how many sprinkles to the deep fried batter. And the thought of cramming these things into my pie hole at breakneck speed, well, even a hot dog competition looks good. And I can’t recall when the last contestant in a wiener race died at the plate.

Still, we are a society with an appetite for momentary fame. American Idol, the Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, Pancake Gobbling King, President of the United States. Give us our 15 minutes, that’s all we ask. Something to engrave on the granite headstone when we’re gone, something our progeny can read with no little pride. Here Lies Grampaw: He Died Doing What He Loved Most.

For you grampaws out there slowly rocking into the shadows watching Wheel of Fortune, lift a fork to the Pancake King.

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