I met Clay in 9th grade in civics class. It was “Crazy Hat Day,” a school event wherein students were encouraged to wear a “crazy” hat, and then at the end of the day, the “craziest” hat would win a prize.
Across the room, I noticed that the new kid was wearing an Army helmet, onto which he had glued or taped a bunch of random household items. One of the items was a spray can of Lysol. I thought the hat was great, and I went over and introduced myself.
I then asked, “Do you mind if I blow a fire ball off your helmet?”
“Hey, man. Great hat. I’m Aaron.” He said, “I’m Clay. You think I’ll win?” There was a sarcastic look in his eyes. I knew from that look that he thought “Crazy Hat Day” was dumb, and that he was making fun of the whole concept with his hat. I said, “Oh, yeah, you got this.” I then asked, “Do you mind if I blow a fire ball off your helmet?” I pulled a lighter out of my pocket. He said, “Go for it.” I made sure the teacher wasn’t looking, and depressed the nozzle, and held the lighter in front of the spray, and a massive jet of fire spewed upwards, towards the ceiling. A couple kids saw us, laughed, and came over to us. We all watched the teacher, and when he wasn’t looking, we did a couple more fire balls.
So, Clay and I were friends immediately, I guess you could say. He was a recent transplant from California, and I identified with that, as I was a fairly recent transplant from Illinois. Not long after, we began playing guitars together, and writing songs that made us, high school males, laugh. After not too long, we had a whole set of songs, many of which were joke songs, like “The Pick Up Truck Song,” and our cover of the theme song from Petticoat Junction. Clay’s dad, who as I mentioned as a musician, booked us gigs at The Oyster Bar, and we would get up as “Aaron and Clay,” and play our joke songs, and the occasional serious song — most originals.. We were, essentially, Tenacious D, but instead of being overweight, metalhead stoners doing an act, we were geeked-out nerdboys who belted acoustic songs from our hearts with lyrics like, “I like baked beans, and I like gravy, and I like Twinkies on a sunny day.”
The punchline: Clay won “Crazy Hat Day.”