"Davy, Davy Crockett... King of the Wild Frontier"

Up to about four years old I had a lisp.  My teeth got in the way when I talked. My parents asked, "What's your name!"
"Tonte," came out of my mouth instead of Tommy.

When they needed serious cheering up, Dad and Mom would sit on the couch and ask me to sing the Davy Crockett theme song - and I would - on the top of my lungs, lisping and stuttering through the first two stanzas until I ran out of breath and made myself dizzy. Dad bought the record, so I could practice and they could laugh their asses off. I didn't care, at least not at that point. Them on the couch covering their giggling mouths, and me centered on the rug with my head swung up singing like a loon to the light fixture.

"Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier..."

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee

Greenest state in the land of the free.

Raised in the woods so he knew ev'ry tree

Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three

Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

In eighteen thirteen the Creeks uprose

Addin' redskin arrows to the country's woes

Now, Injun fightin' is somethin' he knows

So he shoulders his rifle an' off he goes

Davy, Davy Crockett, the man who don't know fear.

We have a great "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" this Tuesday, Dec 9th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Cafe. A merge of storytelling and narrative song ~ a love letter to street life, the neighborhood and the characters in it.

Our artists: Muneesh Jain; Margarita Pracatan; Elizabeth Rowe and Jeff Rose.

$ 8 admission includes a free drink. I'll host and tell one from my new book, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood."

I will sign copies of the book at the show.

Praise for the book ~ ( if you read it, please say a few honest words online in booksellers reviews section)

“Thomas R. Pryor has written a sweet, funny, loving memoir of growing up old-school in a colorful New York neighborhood. A story of sports, family, and boyhood, you’ll be able to all but taste, smell, and feel this vanished world.”
—Kevin Baker, author of the novels Dreamland, Paradise Alley, and Strivers Row


“Tommy Pryor’s New York boyhood…was the mid-century coming of age of all of us. A rousing read.”
—Robert Lipsyte, author and former city and sports columnist, The New York Times


“Pryor could take a felt hat and make it funny.”
—Barbara Turner-Vesselago, author of Writing Without A Parachute: The Art of Freefall


“Pryor burrows into the terrain of his childhood with a longing and obsessiveness so powerful it feels like you are reading a memoir about his first great love.”
—Thomas Beller, author of J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist


“I wasn’t alive for the New York Thomas Pryor writes about, but thanks to his brilliant, honest, and hilarious book, I feel like I was there.”
—Dave Hill, comedian and author of Tasteful Nudes