Harmony With Kids Has Been Instrumental in Shaping Minstrel’s Career

“Hey, Music Man” is a common greeting to John-patrick Yeiser, who is well known to elementary school students throughout Orange County.

“I don’t think there’s many adults around who know who I am or what I do,” said Yeiser, who comes by his kid-given moniker honestly since he spends his days singing and playing instruments for students.

“I think I’ve sung to every kid in Orange County,” said the 41-year-old Yorba Linda troubadour who owns thousands of different musical instruments collected from countries throughout the world. And he can play every one of them.

He likes to think of himself as a modern-day minstrel.

Before turning to folk music to tell his story of hope and love, “I had that typical hippy-type philosophy of getting some knowledge and sharing it with adults and in some way bettering the world,” he said.

But he came to the realization that “there was no hope for my generation, no hope for my parents and no hope for me.”

So he decided that “the next generation was the one where there was hope. If I could teach and sing traditional songs to that group and help them find the good in themselves, there would be hope for us all.”

He’s been singing to youngsters for 15 years “and it’s a real pain because I’m poor. I’m not making a whole bunch of money, but I’ll tell you one thing, I’m happy.”

Yeiser knows he’s not doing a good job of marketing himself. “I have to do something about that,” he said. “I’m not a financial go-getter. I’m good at selling myself to kids but not to the kids’ parents.”

Besides schools, where PTAs and sponsors pay him $180 a day, Yeiser is a regular at the Children’s Museum at La Habra, but he has to go knocking on doors to get 1-night gigs.

“What I’m doing is absolutely great,” he said. “I bring in 20 instruments and teach kids how to play them, and they absolutely cannot fail. They just keep the beat and get music.”

Yeiser attended Marina High School in Huntington Beach and later studied ancient civilization at Cal State Long Beach, where he learned “music is the same throughout the ages. We just give them different names like rock ‘n’ roll.”

Now he wants to open a folk music camp and have groups of junior and senior high school students pass on musical traditions.

He also wants to form a nonprofit corporation called Legacy Foundation to provide music appreciation by making videos of traditional, cultural and folk music, as well as games and dances children can learn.

Despite a near tragedy to his ice sculpture, Newport Beach ice sculptor Mark Daukas won first place in Sunday’s first Orange County Holiday Ice Carving Competition at the Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach.

“I had four risky points in the carving,” said Daukas, “and it broke in three places, but I managed to keep it together.”

His sculpture was called “Holiday Solo” and depicted an angel rising out of the clouds.

Daukas claims the title of national ice-sculpting champion and has won every contest he’s entered in the past 3 years.

There was the Pet Rock, and now Paul F. Kiluk, 42, of Corona del Mar has come up with My Pet Lawn and the motto “You grow it, you mow it.”

He said the 4-by-4-inch lawn--which sells for $10--is a practical alternative to the real thing, except that you keep it in inside the house.

“People who live in condominiums and apartments can have their own personal indoor lawn,” said Kiluk, whose Newport Beach business is called Greener Pastures. “There are three places where the lawn grows best: near a window, near a window and near a window.”

He also feels that no self-respecting executive should be without a freshly scissored desktop lawn and points out that the lawn does not contribute much to water-shortage problems.

And, he says, if people really get attached to the pet lawn, they can take it out for a walk.

Acknowledgments: Costa Mesa resident and businesswoman Joan Jeter, 49, remained undefeated as a triathlete by winning the Boca Raton (Fla.) Triathlon on Sunday. It was her 13th consecutive victory in 2 years.