July 29th, 2010 §
Continuing on with my list of 4 things that changed my life forever…….
3. Drums; I remember being six years old and seeing an old black and white movie (then again, everything was black in white on our TV), but I know this movie took place somewhere in the 1940’s showing a guy playing drums in a “big band” and he did a solo that was absolutely amazing, even for a kid my age, it was one of those moments where your brain keeps it alive in your memory, even when you forget what you had for breakfast that day, this was one of those images that never leaves. I found out later it was Gene Krupa. Kind of like the stories you read about famous musicians that first saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and knew right then, “that’s what I want to do”. Gene Krupa was the guy that made me say that about drumming. However, within the couple years between this moment, and when I actually started playing the drums, I heard the song “Smoke on the water” by Deep Purple. The guitar riff at the beginning of the song was hypnotizing. I decided right then I wanted to play guitar. For Christmas I got a little kids version of an electric guitar, the body made of some kind of metal, and shaped like a Fender Stratocaster. I played the hell out of it, and took it with me everywhere I went. I played it along with my records of “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies, and “I think I love you” by the Partridge family, and “Little Willie” by Sweet. I was gonna be the guitarist for a rock band, and no one was going to stop me!
Well a couple years past, and my older sister started taking Accordian lessons, yep….that’s right, I said Accordian lessons! For those of you that don’t know what an accordian is, it’s like a concertina with a keyboard on one side……and for those of you that don’t know what a concertina is, well if you’ve ever heard of a Polka (ie: Roll out the barrel), the concertina and accordian were the main instrument of Polkas and Polka bands. So yes, my sister was taking private lessons to learn the accordian and playing Polkas…..how cool is that?? (LOL)
In 1973, I was in 4th grade, and my parents decided it was time for me to learn an instrument. Of course I wanted to take guitar lessons. My parents thought about it, and decided against this, and from what I can remember, the reason was “the guitar was too loud.” So of course my second choice was the drums, but if they thought the guitar was too loud, there would be no way they would let me take drum lessons. I jokingly said, “how about the drums?”…….for some unbelievable reason they agreed. Thinking back, it didn’t seem like I had to twist their arm very hard to convince them, so maybe the drums was actually their first choice for me, and in reality it should have been mine as well. I remember sitting in my Grandma’s kitchen taking pots and pans out of the cupboard and beating on them with wooden spoons when I was about 4 years old, and getting at least 2 kiddie drum sets for christmas which I continuously punctured holes in, and finally, going to weddings and sitting by the band and staring at the drummer, watching intently as he kept a beat and sometimes did a fill using all the drums, and ending with a cymbal crash. As usual, my parents knew what was best for me, and they gave me the opportunity to see that first hand.
I started my first private drum lesson on April 23rd, 1973 from Scott S., a 19 year old guy that wore plaid bellbottom pants, porkchop sideburns, and semi-platform shoes. He was in college preparing to be a Band Director, and was an amazing drummer. Scott was a pretty tough teacher, and a total perfectionist. Maybe it was that he saw a lot of potential in me, and was really destined to make me a good drummer, or he just didn’t have any patience for mistakes and excuses, so there were many times after a lesson, he would inform my parents that it was clear I didn’t practice my assignments and he would reassign the same one for the following week, my parents were not pleased. They were strict about me practicing at least one hour a day after school, and many times I would play longer, but my Mom and Dad would not accept anything less than a positive review from my weekly lessons.
I found that being good at playing an instrument, put you in a different social class, one of higher respect and admiration. It’s amazing how many people I’ve talked to who wish they could play an instrument, and / or read music. I felt the same way about guitarists, and pianists. I find those instruments to be much harder to learn than drums, however, I’m told the same thing by other musicians that playing the drums is very hard to learn. It is to an extent, learning to play a different beat at the same time with each hand and foot, does take quite a bit of practice, and drum music although written on a music staff with notes, represent a different drum or cymbal, and not as a lettered note per se, but if you play percussion instruments such as a Tympani, Bells, Chimes, marimba, Xylophone, the notes read like piano sheet music.
I took private lessons for four years, and played in my school bands, orchestras, jazz bands, marching bands, etc. and yeah, I got to be very good at it. I went to band camp for two years, and for me, it was a lot of fun as I planned to go on to college majoring in music and become a band director. Two mentors that really influenced me to almost continue on as a band director were Henry Canitz, who was my band director in Jr. High, and he was the founder and band director of the Milwaukee Pops Youth Band, which I was a member for four years. In that band we played and recorded on albums, music like the 1812 Overture, William Tell Overture, themes from classic movies such as Star Wars, and marching band music from John Philip Sousa. Mr. Canitz demanded perfection, and was an excellent trombone player as well. My respect for him was huge, and I believe he really enjoyed seeing his students excel in the instruments they played, and many of them went on to be professional musicians and music teachers. In 1980, the MPYB went to Hawaii and played several concerts, we had WAY too much fun (stories I may bring up down the road on this Blog). The other person that was a huge influence in music to me was my high school band director Joel Blahnik. Mr. Blahnik pushed the limits in our abilities to play non-conventional pieces, and our band was invited to play in the Mid-West Band Clinic in Chicago. Our high school band was very very good, with a lot of talent, and we had a genuine love for music and Mr. Blahnik, he was a great guy and a wonderful talented director. Mr. Blahnik announced to our band my Junior year, that he was leaving to pursue other opportunities and would not be back the following year. It was a huge blow to us as musicians, and to me personally as I had my sights set on becoming a band director mainly because of him. My Senior year in band was tough, our new band director was good, but he didn’t motivate us the way Mr. Blahnik did, and although I still planned on being the drummer in a rock band, touring the world with Areosmith, Van Halen, and Rush, I just didn’t see my future as a band director anymore. Now my Mom and Dad were somewhat disappointed with me, all those lessons and talent being wasted, to a point. I did however play in several rock and heavy metal bands, and an alternative christian rock band, and fill in occasionally at open mike bars where musicians will gather on stage and start jamming, and if I ever find the time to get back into music seriously, I’d love to play in another rock band, or maybe a swing “big band” type band such as the Brian Setzer Orchestra. I played that kind of music in our jazz bands in high school and it was great! I won many awards in school for playing the drums, and also taught private lessons for several years. I have a total love for music and for playing it, and will continue in some capacity throughout my life, but having the title of “Drummer” in my personal resume, allows for a little higher respect factor, and bragging rights. My classmates that I still see and talk to occasionally, remember me for playing the drums, and for my cartoons, and I’ll always be proud of that, and will always admire the real drummers that made their mark in music, and changed my life in that way; Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Neil Peart, John Bonham, Steve Gadd, Joey Kramer, Alex Van Halen, Ian Pace, etc.
July 22nd, 2010 §
Being a boy growing up in Milwaukee in the late ’60’s, ’70’s, and 1980’s, there were few things that influenced you in an instant, that changed the direction of your life forever. There were four of those for me. Here are my first two;
1. Baseball: In 1969 the Seattle Pilots became an American League team. That only lasted one year there. I was too young to remember when the Braves left town in 1965, but I do remember hearing how heartbroken the city of Milwaukee was. Wisconsinites love their sports teams, and when the Braves left Milwaukee for Atlanta, this was a hard steel-toed kick to the emotional groin that some loyal fans just could not recover from.
The pledge to never attend or watch another baseball game….ever….period (especially those GD Braves in Atlanta) was heard throughout town. I was turning seven when the Pilots became the Brewers in 1970. I remember my Dad taking me to one of their first games of the season. Jumping into our olive green Buick LeSabre, sitting in traffic awaiting entry to the parking lot, and finally entering the short tunnels up to the stands at Milwaukee County Stadium was like walking up a ramp to heaven…..it was thrilling!
My Dad bought a Brewers Yearbook to keep score (which he always did for the hundreds of other games we went to since). He bought me a hat and and banner to hang on my wall, (which it did for years). Sitting in the stands with my Dad was absolutely glorious, and for that moment as a seven year old kid, life couldn’t get any better than that.
2. The Green Bay Packers: I was too young to remember the “Glory Years” of the Packers domination in the 1960’s. As a kid, Sundays in Milwaukee consisted of; Waking up, getting dressed, going to church, stopping at Grebe’s Bakery for ham and rolls, coming home, eating brunch, and watching AWA All-Star Wrestling from 11-12am hoping that the self proclaimed “Milwaukee’s Favorit Son” the Crusher would be wrestling. Go ahead, Google him…..he was a beer swilling fun loving crazy guy that we loved to watch beat the crap out of guys such as Ray Stevens and Nick Bockwinkle. This was way before Hulk Hogan and the other nutjobs in the WWE.
Then at noon, my Dad would sit down on the couch with a freshly opened bottle of PBR (sometimes my uncles would come over) and prepare to watch the Packers with him. Now at this time, the Packers had lost most of their great players from the ’60’s due to retirement, or trades since Saint Vince Lombardi had left in 1969 to coach the Washington Redskins….a sad, sad time in Wisconsin. The early ’70’s teams kind of just slagged along, trying to live up to our expectations, and failing miserably. That however did not stop us from continuously, loyally, cheering them on with players such as the legendary Bart Starr, Ray Nitchke, and the awesome running backs John Brockington and MacArthur Lane. They still provided a glimmer of hope to bring us another championship season and a 3rd Superbowl.
Watching my Dad adjust himself on the sofa, preparing for his three hour screamfest at our massive 20 inch screen black and white TV set was always fun to observe. At halftime, my Mom would walk into the living room handing my Dad another beer and setting up a TV tray with potato chips, pretzels, or my Dad’s favorite Ma Baensch herring and Ritz crackers. It was comical watching Dad and sometimes my uncles bending over their plates with those tiny herring forks, slapping a gelatinous square of fishy goodness on a Ritz, and gobbling them up like it was their last meal.
Now watching the Packers play on Sunday wasn’t just a game, it was a ritual that takes place to this day. Traffic in Wisconsin during a Packer game is non-existent. A guy being seen out in public doing anything other than watching the game, was instantly observed as someone from out of town. How dare you be from Wisconsin and be seen walking in the mall or any other store unless it was the hardware store where you had to buy something to fix something at home that needed immediate attention; (ie: broken water heater, furnace, garbage disposal, or anything on the car or roof)….then and only then were you excused, but by God you better be listening to the game on WTMJ radio (62 on your AM dial).
If you went to 11:00am mass on Sunday at a catholic church in Wisconsin on game day, you were almost guaranteed a short service with the priest shortening his sermons to 3 minutes or less, sometimes during an important game he would tell the congregation outright , “there will be no sermon today” (with no explanation necessary) and we would be out the door in 35 minutes.
Is it wrong to pray for a short mass? Does cheering whispers of “YES” throughout the church when finding out you are at a ”No Sermon Mass” automatically inch you another step closer to hell? I can imagine the collection plates being a little extra heavy and more silent, filled with paper money stained with fingerprints of appreciation from all the men. You have to be from, or living in Wisconsin to understand this.
Now God forbid if the Packers lost, there is an unwritten rule in Wisconsin; “You NEVER talk about the game ever again!” Being at your job the following Monday was like being at a funeral parlor, you walk slowly to where you need to go, quietly nodding Good Morning to your co-workers, and going about your business in silence……but if the Packers won!…..there was screams of jubilation that could be heard as far away as those God Forsaken cities Chicago and Minneapolis! Games were joyfully discussed at Sunday dinner and far into the night. I have no doubt that after each Packer win, the population in Wisconsin increased 9 months later.
Listening to Sports Talk Radio on the way to work Monday morning, hearing the DJ’s break down the game into minute increments of gratification that carried you through the work day and again into the night. By Tuesday, you started mentally preparing yourself and the Packers for the next game, examing player stats for the opposing team, and praying for mid-week injuries to occur to their best players.
To some people, the Packers are a way of life. You just don’t go outside anywhere unless you are properly attired in some form of Green and Gold. Male babies are born with names of our favorite players, they leave the hospitals adorned in a tiny green and gold stocking cap, and then their proud fathers put them on the waiting list for season tickets which at this time has over 81,000 names on it. Most likely one will never obtain a Season Ticket in their lifetime unless you either inherit it, or by the grace of God, someone sells theirs to you…..and that would mean this wonderful person has no next of kin to offer this amazing gift to.
Do I love my Packers?………with all my heart!!
July 20th, 2010 §
Hello to all who are now reading my Blog!……welcome aboard!
I’m Joe Groshek, a Humorous Illustrator from Milwaukee Wisconsin currently living in Jacksonville, Florida. I do hold other titles which I’ll get into as I ramble along…..however, for now, please allow me to introduce myself further. Along with my parents, I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. I come from a huge family of fun over the top personalities that growing up in Wisconsin, kept everything fun and exciting almost everyday.
My Dad comes from a family of 1o brothers and 2 sisters, and due to our alarming and potent fertile genetics, these 12 people produced 57 kids, and then these kids produced over 90 and counting. Today is my Grandma’s 94th Birthday, (Happy Birthday Grandma!) and she can still remember everyone of their names, trust me, I’ve sat playing Pinochle with her as she rattled each name off……amazing!!
Now for those who are not familiar with Wisconsin for other than Cheese, Beer, and the Glorious Green Bay Packers, we have a very unpredictable weather system. It can get into to the upper 90’s during the day, and into the 30’s at night, and this is in July for God’s sake! My parents grew up on farms in the North Central part of the state, going to the same high school, my Dad was a great athlete excelling in Football and Wrestling and was the State Champion in his weight class in 1959. My Mom was the head cheerleader, and they became Homecoming King and Queen their Senior year…..in other words, they were destined to be together, and they still are, just recently celebrating their 49th wedding anniversary.
Like all my Dad’s brothers and sisters, they graduated from high school and immediately moved down to Milwaukee to find jobs. I loved going back to my parent’s home town as a kid and hear the locals tell me stories about my Dad and how great he was in sports, and was always a perfect gentleman, having lots of friends and hanging out in the local bars as a teenager.
The stories quickly moved from “Great Athlete” to an “Amazing Brawler”. Now my Dad would never tell me any of these stories himself, but the locals would gladly tell me tales of my Dad’s heroics at the local taverns. Lets just say, he never started a fight, but he always finished it…..and from what I’m told, there were quite a few of them. I’m not sure if my Dad really wanted me to hear about these things, but yet he never stopped the guys from telling them either, and I’m very glad he didn’t, as these stories just added a little more to the top of the “Pride Mountain” I already had for him, he became a little more “Cooler” than all other Dads, and I couldn’t wait to share these stories with my friends.
Then the locals would bring up my Uncles, all great in sports, and awesome brawlers in their own right. A few joined the Armed Forces right out of school, but most became regular blue collar guys. Hard Workers?…..Oh my God, if you could see their work ethics! They all were “Jacks of all trades”, knowing a little about everything, and being damn good at each.
Their motto seemed to be ”Do it right the first time, and do not stop until the jobs completed!” It still amazes me to this day, with them all being in their 60’s and 70’s now, how hard they work, and continue to have these same ethics, trying to instill them on us (me and my Male cousins). Of course we could never really do things the way they would do it, fixing cars, building things, etc. So we became their “GoFor” statues, meaning we would stand still right next to them with one hand in our pocket, and the other hand holding their beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon), occasionally sneaking a sip when they weren’t looking. Waiting for the moment when they would say “Go downstairs and in my toolbox, get me the big philips screwdriver and a 7/16 inch wrench”.
When that was said, I would instantly pull the bottle of beer away from my lips and take off down the stairs, into the basement, hit the lights, run into the workroom where every tool on the planet was neatly resting in several tool boxes, workbench drawers, or hanging from hooks on the wall. Not to mention the thousands of nuts, screws, and bolts in hundreds of little drawers, clearly labeled by size, and in an order that only my Dad could find blindfolded.
Ok, so I’m looking for the BIG Philips screwdriver….hmmmm….there were only 20 of them,….. ranging from the nubby one, to the 14 inch monster. Now that day, my dad was working on our Buick LaSabre, so I figured the 14 inch was too big, but he DID say the BIG one, so I grabbed it out of the big red toolbox, and now was looking for the 7/16 inch wrench…..”Oh man” I thought, did he want the one with the open end, the closed end, the adjustable, the one with the bend in it, the long skinny one,…..I forgot to ask….he didn’t elaborate as to which one he needed!! Panic struck in,…. my hands starting to sweat, knowing full well if I brought back the wrong one, I’ll have to make the trip back down to the basement humiliated that I couldn’t “Do it right the first time”!!!!……then BAM!….a thought hit me, why don’t I bring ALL of them, keep them hidden in my pocket and ask him which one he wanted, when he’d tell me, then I could just magically flip it into his big monsterous grease filled hand……God I was clever!
FLyingback up the stairs, turning off the lights, I ran up to my Dad’s legs dangling from underneath the car. I asked him which wrench he needed, when he said the open ended one, I proudly handed it to him….no thanks was needed, just the quietness of being “Right the first time” was thanks enough. I grabbed his beer to take a quick sip of it, and then he asked for the Philips screwdriver…….slamming it into his hand with pride, the silent thanks was broken by the words” What’s this, No, not this one, I need one smaller than this, the one with the yellow handle!”
Now in my mind, I just became the biggest “Tool” in the box, failure and disappointment of not getting it “Right the first time” quickly burned through my veins……..almost wanting to cry,….almost,….. but then that would make me a “Big Fat Little Wussy TOOL!!” I ran back into the house, down the stairs, into the workroom, opened all the tool boxes and found 5 BIG yellow handled Philips screwdrivers! Grabbing all 5 I ran back to my Dad’s legs, fanning out the screwdrivers so he could pick the one he needed, he looked up, scanning them all and pulled out the one he needed, then with a glance of approvement he went back under the car and continued to do whatever it was he was doing under there.
Exhausted by nervousness, I grabbed his beer and took a big swig, not realizing I just finished it off!! Oh NO!!….with another wave of panic running through my body, I asked my Dad if he wanted another beer, and thank God he said YES! Running yet a third time down to the basement and into the Fridge, I grabbed one of about 50 bottles of Pabst, popped it open with the bottle opener attached to the wall, and slowly walked up the basement steps taking another swig of the icy cold yumminess!!
Now the funny part of this story is, I could’ve been between 5 and 21 years old….but it doesn’t matter, I was pretty much the “GoFor” for my Dad until I moved out of the house at 23. Not because I couldn’t fix things, I could to a point, but my interests were more wanting to go to my bedroom to draw cartoons, listen to my Steve Martin Comedy albums, and read MAD Magazines……which I did very well! My brother Rick however, was fixing things with my Dad when he was 3 years old. Sometimes I feel I missed out on sharing those kinds of moments with my Dad like my brother did, but at least we had a few things in common, one being we were very good working with our hands…..my Dad with his tools, and me with mine,….a pencil, a pen, and two Regal Nylon Tip Drum Sticks! I consider myself lucky in that respect, at least my Dad’s talents didn’t skip a generation.