the doings of the acorns

By Robbie on May 28, 2011

Every once in a while here on muh-wah-dot-com, we must brag. Wallet snapshots of one's children, Peter DeVries once said, were the last bastion of monogamy. A half-century on, bourgeois mating conventions having proved dully dislodgeable while technology's destructive pace has steadily quickened, has this once-ripe apercu withered on the vine of wit -- or are self-published verbal snapshots a Twitter-age fortification of, um, monotony? Or is this one more belabored pun issuing from a poorly focused mind? Well, while some of us hunker in armchairs, drooling and absently twisting words into gay shapes, others, those rashly sired by us in sprightlier days, are out there doing. Today I offer up mini-portraits paying proud homage to the tiny Fulkses, my genetic gifts to the mid-21st-century, who have lately been hacking lustily away at their own statues. Going in order from lowliest to eldest:

Tennessee, 11, last week performed Saint-Saens's "Carnival of the Animals" and other selections on violin, along with his school group, for a crowd of dumbstruck locals in our village. Also, as a pianist -- this kid is a regular Ray Nance! -- he has been regaling us at home non-stop with deeply-felt versions of "Shadows of The Night (Quentin's Theme From Dark Shadows)" and Monk's "52nd Street Theme" and "In Walked Bud." And just to ensure he doesn't turn into some monomaniac music-playing sissy, he spends the rest of his off-hours on the diamond with his Little League team and on the courts with his traveling basketball troupe of ferocious 5th-grade eye-gougers.

Preston, 14, made his debut over the weekend as a rock star, drumming and singing at Nevins Pub in Evanston and the Abbey in Chicago, with his group from the School of Rock. These SOR events, for which kids aged 8 to 18 practice three hours a week for four months, are like recitals, if recitals were played loud at bars and fun to watch, or like club rock shows, if club rock shows featured performances by deliriously motivated kids instead of ostentatiously bored ex-adolescents with concealed motives. They're crazy fun! If you can name me a better use for your ten dollars than a show where several persons who have never shaved belt out "Beast of Burden," while another barely the height of a snare stand drums behind them and a host of leggy 10th-grade girls (may God forgive me; I report what I see) sway and sing along, and all of it pretty grooving and mimetically accurate, then I'm all ears, if doubtful. I may be just an old country-western grumpy-wumpy but I say this is truer to the spirit of rock than some Yourself And The Air set at down at the Filthy Mistress Slackatorium. (I never heard Yourself And The Air, but when I Googled "hot rock bands" that has-to-be-as-bad-as-it-sounds name came right up.)

Elvis, 27, proposed to his girlfriend on stage at Second City, also last week (an action-packed week) and now I am going to be a first-time father-in-law. The lad met the lovely young Detroiter during his tenure as a television hero, a few years back, and I must say, if this is what being on a TV show gets you, then find an agent and start stepping on backs and betraying loved ones, whatever it takes to get on one. In preparation for my future role I am stocking up on musty Peter DeVries quotations, discredited opinions, unsolicited advice, and money.