Sean Week Continues

 

My youngest son Sean turned 20 years old this week. I've been using that as an excuse to go through my old Father Knows Nothing files and featuring a few of my columns about Sean that didn't make it into the final text of the book. Here's one about his very brief brush with show biz from 2008...

Sean has always felt like he missed something because he was just a baby when my radio career ended. His brothers both appeared on the radio and in our stage shows many times–it was totally normal to them. They were literally born into the business.

We have audio tapes of Tommy singing and telling jokes as a 2-year-old, and Johnny doing movie reviews as a three year old, and pictures of their appearances on the radio and on-stage, but Sean was too young to participate when our contract expired five years ago.

So, when John Landecker called me last week and said “We’re getting the band (Landecker & the Legends) together again” for a concert at a small theater, Sean was the most excited about going. These shows are a real family affair for us. I write the comedy lyrics to the songs for John, Bridget creates the costumes for him (and he requests some weird things), and we all help out in the backstage area.

One of the bits John does in the show is bring up a little kid to sing the song “Tequila.” The song only has one word (”Tequila”), so even a small youngster can handle it, and this time the youngster he brought onto the stage was Sean.

He was excited to do it, but when he walked onto the stage, the crowd let out a collective “Awwwwww” which kind of threw him a little bit. (He hates it when everyone tells him how cute he is–and it happens all the time). Then, he felt the hot lights, and the energy in the room, and he got nervous. I could see the panic in his eyes from the side of the stage.

Nevertheless, when the time came, and the song climaxed, and John put the microphone in front of Sean’s face, he delivered the line “Tequila!” perfectly. That’s all he thought he was going to do…but no…that was only the beginning of the bit.

John stopped the band, and started quizzing Sean.

“Do you know what Tequila is?”

“No.”

(The crowd laughed)

“Good. Maybe we shouldn’t have a little boy singing about tequila. What’s your favorite food?”

Sean froze up. He shrugged his shoulders.

John laughed because this has happened many times before. It’s part of the appeal of the bit. Kids being kids.

“What did you have for dinner tonight?” he asked.

Sean shrugged his shoulders again.

“Do you feed this kid?” John screamed to the side of the stage.

“How about candy. What is your favorite candy?”

“Nerds!” he said.

“OK boys, let’s have him sing a brand new song called Nerds.”

And they played the song Tequila again, except this time, instead of saying Tequila, Sean screamed “Nerds!” at the climactic moment.

The crowd loved him and gave him a rousing ovation at the end of the song, but when he got off the stage and came back to us, he was breathing heavily.

“So,” I said to him, “you finally got your chance to be a part of the show. What did you think?”

“It was scary,” he said. “I couldn’t even remember what I ate for dinner.”

“Would you ever do it again?” I asked.

He smiled and nodded. “Oh yeah.”

It terrified him, but he loved it. Showbiz swallows another young soul.