The genesis of me & TITK (This is the Kit)

When I worked at Whole Foods I met a guy from Texas who had worked for WF there & found his way to NYC. I’m not proud to admit that I usually don’t get along with the people that I’ve met from Texas. Probably because they lack the NYC latitude of attitude…the vision…the scope that living in a multicultural Megalopolis, brings to the open minded.

We found a precarious common ground around music. It’s not that it so much flourished, but we were being sociable, it was just chat. I had just discovered a website that listed thousands of recordings one could sample (in the consumption sense, not the DJ sense) so I was able to dip a toe in for about 20 seconds of anything posted.  Mr. Texan recommended The Spoons, a Canadian band that left me cold.

So why am I telling you all this?? Because there’s a pleasant twist.

When I searched my fringe music website, it came back with a link to a song called “Two Wooden Spoons” by This Is The Kit. The name intrigued me, so I clicked. My life was transformed. I was mesmerized.

I had worked in record retail & the music biz for about 10 years prior and thought I’d heard it all and hearing TITK was like having all the trees in the forest falling away. I felt like a ten year old on Christmas morning, just hitting the replay over & over again. The whistling in the You Tube version brought back visions of Snow White & the bluebirds.

I downloaded the album, Krulle Bol & burned 10 CDs for Christmas gifts. I PayPal’ed the band some money, as that was the only way back then.

Some months later they were in Bklyn doing some recording and I attended a few shows  in Bklyn & NYC. If I recollect correctly, one was the the basement of a florist shop that was a bar at night w/music in the basement. There were about 5 people (minus staff) in the audience. Two that I spoke with had driven down from Boston after work & were going to drive back that night to be at work in the AM.

These days I see Kate with her work with The National & it was great to see her with them on The Colbert Show.

I make no claims to “knowing” Kate, but can’t help but wonder how she maintains among all the hub-bub, to say nothing of having the band stay together all this time.

TITK have come a long way in the 10-11 years they’ve been on my radar & I’m grateful for it. Here’s to another decade filled with thoughtful & emotion provoking songs.

…and to think it was some guy from Texas that got me here.

Ya’ never know!

Taking the word confirmation to a different level.

After having an eventful experience surrounding my First Holy Communion a few years earlier, I continued my “religious” studies, after Sunday mass at “Sunday school”. This employed a kind of merit system where you had to parrot back, verbatim the answers from the Catechism. You got stars in your catechism for each answer you gave. There was also a “leader-board”, adorned with gold stars listing the names of the top students. It was a rating system that was more spirited then spiritual.

Having had polio as a preschooler, my physical/playground activities were minimal. The upside was that I spent a lot of time with books. I was an avid reader and had a pretty good command of the language for my age. This “horse race” of religious training allowed me to channel my competitive streak. My nemesis was Ronald Sproferra, or something similar. He was a big guy and pretty smart, but the basis of this contest wasn’t based on size or smarts, it was memorization.

As the big day of our Confirmation grew nearer, we public school kids, who were getting our religion lessons after Sunday mass, were once again attending ceremonial rehearsals with the Catholic School kids. As you can imagine they were looked upon by the nuns as being superior in all things. Manners, education and however else superiority might be measured, they were just better.

While the contest between Ronald and I heated up, we were leaving the rest of the pack way behind. It looked like it was even possible for us to get to the pinnacle of the lessons, in the back of the book, which involved the appropriately named ‘Great Mysteries’.

When receiving the “sacraments” of Communion & Confirmation for the first time, it was customary for the participants to have new clothes. The “communion suits” or confirmation suits and corresponding dresses were pretty much like uniforms. There was no competition like the prom outfits that later life socialization of would bring.

On the actual day, while we gathered in the classrooms, we were given the rewards for our places on the leader-board. They were small pins, of a religious theme, differentiated by color. There were lots of blue ones, way fewer silver ones and there was a very small number of gold. These were handed out according to merit by the nuns, who were most particular in affixing them to each of us.

There were a number of different churches in the archdiocese that were also having their Confirmation ceremonies on the same day. Since the Bishop was to preside over all of them, he had a pretty full schedule, and he was late for ours. While we waited, my Catholic school buddy, who you might remember from our Confusion at the Convent episode, were chatting in whispers. He admired my gold pin and wondered why his was only blue. After all he had suffered through a full-blown parochial Catholic school religious education. From what he’d seen, all the other Catholic school kids got silver or gold pins. I told him it didn’t matter to me, so we swapped.

The Bishop was to address the new “soldiers of Christ” on their first assignment of protecting the flock from the evils of the Devil, or some such. As could be expected the nuns treated him like a rock star.

At the part of the “mass” where the sermon would normally be, the Bishop, rather than stand in the pulpit, walked through the railing of the altar and started to stroll down the center aisle of the church. He kept turning from side to side to address the congregation and particularly us, the initiates. We had been told that he would ask questions and we should all raise our hand vigorously to volunteer the answers whether we knew them or not.

Of course, I had no problem with this. I knew all the answers, and so did Ronald. The difference being he was a full head and shoulders taller than me so he was sitting about halfway back in the church.

As the Bishop started his stroll he was asking the simplest of questions from the front of the Catechism. “Who made us?” The answer, naturally was “God made us.” “Who was the first man and woman?”, “Adam and Eve”. Etc. Since I was a small guy and we entered the church in size order I was sitting in the front, in the first pew nearest to the altar.

As he made his way towards the middle of the church the questions would get a little bit harder. On his way back, the questions were harder still. Despite the increasing difficulty every single kid in the room was responding to the questions with vigorously waving hands. As I had spent weeks in class with these kids, I knew how few of them could get past the first 5 questions, never mind the more metaphysical aspects like difference between the “4 Pillars” & the “7 Sacraments”, yet everyone got their answer right.

As the Bishop made his way back to the altar steps he was getting into the subject known as the “Mysteries”. Even Ronald and I had trouble with these.

Since I knew The Catechism inside out, I knew this exercise was winding down. There were only one or 2 questions left, but they were the hardest questions. When he was right at the starting point he asked The Question. This was met with the same vigorous, staged enthusiasm equal that of the very first question. As he was looking around at all the “hopeful” participants, his eyes fell on my Catholic school buddy. He pointed to him as he asked the question. The poor kid stood up, red is a beet and just stood there and stammered. His mouth moved but nothing intelligible came out. You could hear the gasp of all who knew what had happened, but that was a select few.

I should mention that this particular order of nuns wore habits that were dark and flowing. The headgear was from head to toe. They reminded me of Banshees not only in their appearance but in their actions as they started to circle like vultures around a carcass. They knew what had happened. The Bishop also realized the jig was up but barely missing a beat, managed to get back in the swing of things by supplying the answer to the question himself.

I was still oblivious that anything untoward happened. The ceremony came to its conclusion, the Bishop made his way down the aisle & out the front doors, We started to file out through the front doors, with the tallest kids going first. Since my buddy and I were the smallest, we were the last. As we passed the last pew and started into the vestibule, we were both snatched away and hustled into a small side room near the exit. Things were happening so quickly, I really didn’t know what was up until I heard my mother’s voice.

As this was a supposed big event, I mean I did have a new suit at all, my whole family was there. They were waiting on the steps of the church like everyone else. When my buddy and I didn’t show, my mother had come back into the foyer of the church to look for me and, I assume deduced by the gaggle of banshees that was surrounding my cohort and I, hissing and slapping us, where we were.

She entered the fray grabbing me by the arm, put me behind her and asked why this was happening. The nuns were at a loss to explain because there treachery/trickery would be exposed.

If you haven’t guessed by now the pins we were given were of visual clues to the Bishop signifying which kids would be able to answer what grade/level of questions he asked because every kid was supposed to know every answer.

IMO this is about as dishonest as a plot can get, particularly because it involved children.

Not giving any ground, the nuns insisted that my mother come at a later date to discuss “my misbehavior.”

As you may recall from my previous communion problem, my mother had had experience with the “mother superior”.

The upshot is when she came out of the office from this latest meeting, I asked her what was going to happen to me. She said “I’m not sure what she meant.” Then Mom asked me what “extreme unction” was & I explained that was the “final sacrament” or “last rites” administered when you die.

She said she’d been told that they really didn’t care to see me again until I needed Extreme Unction. At this she smiled and said it was time for some donuts.