Professor deCampo of PLANET
ANDY'S Brookline MA research institute has been busy peeling apart and
restoring what appears to be the actual memoirs of MINT APPLE JELLY here's...
part 1:
My
Name is Mint Apple Jelly and I'm a musician.It took me years to be able
to say that in public, or in front of my family. I was born with another
name that didn't fit me, but once I discovered Canadian Oat Bread and Apple
Jelly with Mint, everything changed. Well, maybe not everything. If my
name is Mint Apple Jelly, then I should also say I was born the day I showed
up at school to take the Iowa Tests with a #3 pencil in my hand. I couldn't
figure out why my teacher made such a fuss about bringing a #2 pencil to
class for the test - I just took the first pencil I saw when I ran for
the bus, and didn't think anything else about it. Now, #3 pencils don't
make a very dark mark, and as I filled in the circles on that test, I figured
that whoever had to sit and grade these things would appreciate the change
of pace.Of course, the tests are fed into a machine, and it only caught
every fifth answer I filled in. So, about a month later, I was sent down
to the Principal's office where I was told I had been selected for a new
program called "MT". I was handed a saxophone, and told to go
home.I don't like to talk about that year the "MT" year especially
Beethoven I can't stand that musicZ! Y! X! W! sorry, it's an old habit.
But I must also admit that my MT year made me what I am today. I threw
away that saxophone, took up a guitar and drumsticks(I just love playing
them together - really gets the audience impressed) and started hanging
out with Bobby Bart, Maya Carso, and Manny "Those" Kaneri. They
used to work in the blue jean factory that closed down years before, and
spent their unemployed time out behind the school selling things that they
'guaranteed' would help us get through class (I never understood what WatermelonGum
could do to raise my grade in math). Then I heard them talking about needing
a drummer for their group. In no time, I was cutting out of school at lunch
to spend the afternoons by the Wappinger Creek playing music they called
"jazz". I found out later, we weren't playing anything like jazz,
but it doesn't matter. When we played, we played good and even began to
attract a crowd under the highway bridge where we practiced. One day a
squad car drove up, and I thought it was sent by the school. It turned
out the Chief heard us over the microphones they placed under the bridge
[to keep tabs on vagrants], and was a big fan. From then on "The Sweet
Orrs" (our band name) couldn't get arrested in that town. But things
between us weren't good when we weren't playing. Bobby and Maya were living
with each other, but Maya kept talking about some other guy she could have
had instead of Bobby, and frequently our rehearsals would end with some
vicious taunt by one or the other of them. Manny couldn't live within the
limits of his unemployment check, and he would occasionally show up at
rehearsal with a bag of silverware or a couple of candlesticks that he
said he had picked up at a garage sale. Of course he always showed up the
next day with a real bad hangover.But the biggest problem the group had,
I think, was the age gap between them and me. I'd always try to raise our
spirits before we launched into the first song, and I even played them
an early version of what became "Happy Blues", but that only
seemed to make them more caustic. Then one day, after a rip-roaring show
that had all the top brass of the local Police dancing round the stage,
I was kicked out of the band. I still don't know why, but at the time Maya
was spending time talking to me about her other man (who she only referred
to as "D") and I think Bobby was getting jealous.I was pretty
down. I thought I was part of this great group, and that we might even
make it out from under the bridge, but Bobby, who was the leader of the
band, only wanted to make the music, he never really wanted fame or money.
I had a taste of success and I wanted more, but I had no one to work with.
After a month or so of moping around (I dropped out of school by this time),I
took my drum set and guitar to the big Mall and played in the parking lot.
My first day I got $20, and by sharing half of that with the Mall Security,
I got to come back the next day. I didn't attract much of a crowd, although
the people passing by were impressed, either by my music or by the fact
that I was playing both the drums and guitar at the same time.I might still
be doing that if Roy "Moonshine" Driver hadn't discovered me.
Roy got me my first big break, and was my first manager before his untimely
'accidental suicide' five years later.
[The rest of the manuscript is stuck together with what appears to be
jelly, and is currently being separated and restored]
NOVEMBER 1999! Part 2
of the manuscript has been de-encrypted.
READ IT NOW!
MINT APPLE JELLY FUN FACT:
