Tuesday, January 01, 2019
Pic a Dozen 2018
One picture to represent each month of 2018...
I call it "Pic A Dozen 2018"
I call it "Pic A Dozen 2018"
I challenge you to do this for yourself... Can you choose just one picture for each month of 2018 to represent a special moment, doing something fun, seeing family or friends? Use either a picture of you or a picture that you took. When you take a look back, I'm sure you'll see it really was a good year... maybe that's why you're feeling a bit TIRED! Ha! Good Year Tired... Get It? WARNING: This a lot harder than it seems. I'm stressing out and getting frustrated trying to pick that one shot that highlights that month. But then to put it all in perspective I just recite this mantra to myself... "You think you got problems? Be glad you're not a math book!" Here is my year in review:
JANUARY
The Percussionation Station! Already, right out of the blocks this photo exercise is working. Without looking at the pictures I couldn't tell you when I built my homemade instruments but my photos showed me that January was a very creative month for me. Last January I built this instrument and the Polka Sound Pole (see September's pic). I played this at some open mics, the halfway to the Fest party and at Pierogi Fest. It has 3 washboards, some assorted bells, a cymbal, a license plate, a kazoo and a tin can. It's a lot of fun to play!
FEBRUARY
South Haven's Ice Breaker Festival is a great winter party which always takes place the day before the Super Bowl. Here we are on top of the cardboard sledding hill and as you can see, there isn't much snow, but we had the event anyway. On Friday night, Barb, Karan and I all entered the snowsuit fashion show. We wrapped Barb in bubble wrap and she won first place in the "Don't Laugh, It's Warm Category" On Saturday we get up early and go curling at the outdoor rink Check out the entertaining video I put together for that: CLICK HERE and then we run around town for a few hours for the great chili cook off. At 3pm we have the cardboard sled race. Barb has a flower on her head because she was racing in the Garden Club sled, which won best design in the business category. Karan in the orange tutu went down in her own sled as did I in my surfer dude sled. Nicole and Joyce had one of the best wipeouts of the afternoon in the Monty Python Trojan Rabbit. You can watch that entertaining video HERE I'm really thankful we had such a great time. As you can see we were all smiles but then just four and a half weeks later, Nicole unexpectedly passed away. We saved the Trojan Rabbit and we're going to fix it up and run it again in Nicole's honor one month from today.
MARCH
Oh Danny Boy! It must be the luck of the Irish for me to have struck gold when I found this beautiful Irish lass and asked her to be me wife. Barb and I got to go to two awesome St. Pat's parties in March this year. Eddie Korosa was having a polka party at Joe's in Brookfield, Illinois. Gintas, Dylan Dawson and I got to do a few numbers on pogo cello with the band. The following week we traveled to Maquoketa, Iowa for the Sandberg's legendary St. Pat's Party. I got to play harmonica with the house band in Iowa on a handful of numbers which was a blast.
APRIL
I find it quite fitting that the first time I get my name on the family egg-cracking contest trophy is when Easter falls on April Fools Day. Here I am pictured with my winning Easter Egg and the painted wood trophy that my dad made in 2015. He won in 2014 and the contest has been dominated by my mom's side of the family ever since. The good-looking folks in the pictures behind me are my proud grandparents on my dad's side. It's their Lithuanian tradition that we keep alive. Well, we actually take it to the next level. March Madness brackets are nothing compared to our egg-citing bracket. The reigning champ usually gets a first-round bye and then it's the youngest vs. the oldest in the skinny end and fat end competitions. If need be, we have a playoff but my egg went undefeated in 2018 and now my name is wood burned on the trophy!
MAY
I get to have the best birthday party every year. Abbey Road On The River is a 5-day festival over Memorial Day that almost always falls on my birthday. So yes, it's rough... I have to "work" every year on my birthday. And this shows me working late at the office. I'm up on the main stage, doing my job as an emcee, about to introduce my good friends, the incredibly talented Classicstone from Bogota, Colombia. The reason there are two of me is because the images of me and Javier are being projected on the enormous jumbo screen at the back of the stage. This was a hard year but a healing year. We lost Scott Carlson in January and Nicole in March. We filled the weekend with tributes to Scott and Nicole. Scott was in Meet The Beetles and The Yellow SubMorons and Nicole was in The Yellow SubMorons and managed Meet The Beetles. It was great that Meet The Beetles played three tribute shows for them over the weekend, we played a tribute video for them on the main stage. The kid's playground was named "Nicole's Playground" and we even put on an unannounced unofficial parade for them to carry on our tradition.
JUNE
The Spence Family Reunion. It was great to see my mom's Spence Bakery family this summer. My Aunt Rosie from Texas wasn't able to come up but the other four Spence siblings were there. Here's me with my Uncles Tom and Joe both in their 80's.
In July I had the opportunity to be involved in my first South Haven summer festival. They do a Harbor Fest in June (we had a garage sale that weekend) and a Blueberry Fest in August (same week as Beatlefest) so when Lotte from Foundry Hall invited me to be a part of the Rhythm On The River Music Festival, which occurred the week before Pierogi Fest, I jumped at the chance. We brainstormed and came up with two events. On Friday I would be involved in the homemade instrument petting zoo where I showed off all my homemade instruments and on Saturday I led the community-wide "Foundry Hall Music Makers Experimental Instrumental Orchestration Creation Station" It's pretty cool to see my original idea, 4 upright pallets connected to make a cube and watch the creativity take off from there. One youngster said, "You took garbage and made something beautiful out of it."
AUGUST
The look of happy exhaustion outside the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois. Although I have a blast at The Fest For Beatles Fans, I have a lot of pressure and stress and deadlines to meet in order to bring laughter and smiles to the Fest attendees. This is my Sunday night relief look. I wanted one last picture with The Yellow Submarine before putting it up in dry dock. Right after this picture, I disassembled it so I could transport it and when we got home and hung it from the rafters, I declared that my Yellow Submarine is now in semi-retirement. I say semi-retirement because if someone hires me to bring the Yellow Submarine to their festival, parade or event, I'd be bringing it down faster than you can say Jeremy Hilary Boob, Phhhd. But at Abbey Road On The River and The Fest For Beatles Fans in 2019, look for a brand new Danny Donuts-built contraption. I know a lot of people will be mad at me for not bringing The Yellow Submarine, and a few years back they were mad at me when I unveiled Yellow Submarine 2.1 (pictured) which replaced the original I built out of playground equipment, but I have to keep challenging my creativity and not spend all my time riding around on past successes.
SEPTEMBER
We had a riot in Milwaukee... a polka riot that is! I found out about the first Milwaukee Polka Riot, an alternative polka festival right after it happened in 2017. I knew we had to be a part of the second one. If there was a festival meant for our Beatles polka band, it was the Milwaukee Polka Riot and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to open up the festival. Even blowing 2 circuit breakers didn't slow us down- we simply grabbed the pogo cellos and went out into the crowd to entertain until the power came back on! I'm shown here singing, playing the pogo cello and the polka sound pole. This was also the first show we played in our new red and white polka-dotted vests that Barb made. We're excited to announce that Sgt. Sauerkraut's Polka Band will be playing the 3rd annual Milwaukee Polka Riot in 2019!
OCTOBER
This might surprise you, but I'm not really in to Halloween. I guess I'm lucky that I don't need to wait for a holiday for permission to wear a costume. Back in March, The Sandberg's hosted their final St. Patrick's Party and that meant our Irish Village People act broke up. I ended up with both the Indian and Sailor costumes. Barb and I got invited to go to Ludington Art Center's Halloween Party with Jewelya and Mark so we went as Popeye and Olive Oyl. You should have seen what Barb went through to get her Olive Oyl hair just right. It's amazing to see what she did with a wig, a wire and a black sock! Oh and the best part was that the costume contest was actually broadcast on the radio! Now that's entertainment there!
NOVEMBER
The 50th Anniversary of The Beatles White Album occurred in November so we put on a show at The Karolinka Club. Sgt. Sauerkraut's Polka Band opened, and then BeatleJam, an all-star jam proceeded to perform The Beatles double album in its entirety. We tried to sound like The Beatles on every song except one. Gintas said, "I'm going to perform, 'Don't Pass Me By' as the Saddleman." Gintas has a country music project, writing and performing country songs as the Saddleman. I asked him if I could play harmonica on the number. It was my favorite song we did that night. It was a fresh take on a classic song. It was slowed down and countryfied and as you can see in the picture, Phoenix, Gintas and I put a lot of emotion into it!
DECEMBER
The 5th Annual Christmas With The Beatles Fundraiser and Glove Drive. This year we moved to Dubin's Pizza of Burbank, Illinois. There was no room at the Inn so we moved our little party to the heated beer garden behind the restaurant and bar. This is one of my favorite pictures from my Danny Donuts Musical Comedy set. I'm surrounded by amazing talent: Phoenix Beach, Jim Hondros, Kandalyn Hahn and Winona Patterson. This was my first Christmas With The Beatles without Nicole but her legacy is represented here. Her handmade Meet The Beetles banner hangs from the back wall. The back line Phoenix, Jim and Tony Giangreco (on drums - not pictured but he was back there) I know because of Nicole and I'm wearing my grandpa's #1 shirt for Nicole. My grandpa died in 1978 so this shirt is at least 40 years old. I would often wear it during The Yellow SubMorons shows when they would perform the Rutles song, "Number 1". When Terri Hemmert did her tribute to Nicole on her Breakfast With The Beatles radio show, her sister Julie picked out the perfect song, whose chorus goes, "Number 1, number 1... you're my number 1!"
So there you have it. A dozen pics painfully picked out by me. I wish I could show you 12 more that were equally awesome, but there's something powerful keeping it at an even dozen... Aw, what the heck, if my grandma who ran the bakery taught me one thing, it was to be overly generous. This is why the baker's dozen exists. Throw in an extra donut and the customers will keep coming back. So with that, here's my baker's dozen bonus pic and it happens to be of my grandma's granddaughter and great-granddaughter...
BONUS JULY PIC
Picking up my sister and niece from Midway airport on a Sunday night in July. I loved surprising them as I waited by baggage claim at the bottom of the escalator. I even had two female Chicago cops come by asking me what was going on. I told them I was going to embarrass my niece and one of them said, "She'll be embarrassed alright!" I had just as much fun doing the costume change at Gintas's. Karan, Joe Wood and Gintas were all sitting outside and when I came outside in my clown costume they lost it! Joe, a lawyer even offered to help me out if I got thrown into jail. I would have loved for Jaime and Kylee to have timed it better and have them come down the stairs WHILE being interrogated by the cops, but judging by their smiles, the costume brightened up their Illinois vacation!
Have a great 2019 filled with fabulous pictures and amazing memories! -Danny
